


A Fine and Private Place

by saizine



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: M/M, Whitechapel Big Bang 2013
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-12
Updated: 2013-09-12
Packaged: 2017-12-26 04:07:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 36,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/961385
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saizine/pseuds/saizine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joseph Chandler had never been that attached to his flat. That being said, it didn’t mean that when he saw his normally pristine sitting room sopping wet he was unaffected. Much the opposite, in fact.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2013 Whitechapel Big Bang (hosted over at LJ) between 24 June 2013 and 10 August 2013.
> 
> Many thanks and kudos to clumsyfingers, who did a brilliant job of both leading the challenge and beta-ing this fic, as well as all the other participants and members that provided encouragement and support! I'd also love to express my appreciation to the Whitechapel community as a whole for being so welcoming and inclusive for a new member such as myself. :)
> 
> Title borrowed from Andrew Marvell's 'To His Coy Mistress.'
> 
> [18arcane]() has translated this fic into Russian, and the translation can be found [here](http://fk-2014.diary.ru/p199990027.htm).

 

Joseph Chandler had never been that attached to his flat. 

He was glad he had one, of course—one of his own. He couldn’t stay at the station all the time, although he’d spent more than a handful of nights there during the big cases. But that wasn’t a particularly comfortable predicament for the long-term and Miles would probably ask what was wrong with him if he made his office the equivalence of his home, so a decent-sized two-bedroom flat on Jermyn Street would have to do. 

Not that he was that bothered about the location, or the extra bedroom. Miles kept grumbling on about double-glazed windows and getting a new kitchen fitted in his house, Riley kept far too many paint samples in her handbag, and Kent was always on the phone to his landlord. Chandler was just glad his place was clean and stayed that way. As long as he could sleep in it, it’d do. Not that he could just sleep anywhere—but even so, he had no emotional attachment to the brick, or the crown moulding, or the slightly over-the-top windows.

That being said, it didn’t mean that when Chandler saw his normally pristine sitting room sopping wet he was unaffected.

Much the opposite, in fact.

He had intended for words to come out as he stood in the open doorway and gaped at the equally bewildered workmen, but none did. A strangled sound of shock and surprise managed to claw its way out of his throat when he noticed the damp plaster of the ceiling and the steady _plop-plop_ of discoloured water dripping onto his kitchen counter.

A newcomer jostled Chandler’s shoulder as he walked behind him, carrying brightly coloured buckets.

‘What—’

‘Sorry, mate,’ said the workman, shrugging his respects before stepping into the sloshing puddle of his living room.

Chandler stood, still gaping, braced against the doorframe. He didn’t know if he would have preferred to come home to a crime scene or not. It probably would have been marginally less stunning, if only for the overexposure.

Something about his indignant distress must have made an impact on the unwelcome visitors because the almost familiar face of his landlord appeared from the direction of the kitchen. They’d only met once or twice before, but Chandler was certain he’d always been a professional sort of fellow. He still was, in a way, with the shadow of a suit; he’d rolled his sleeves to his elbows, done away with the luxury of a tie, and tucked the ends of his trousers into a pair of wellies.

The tub of Tiger Balm weighed heavily against the silk lining of Chandler’s coat pocket. His heartbeat drummed out its subdued panic against the glass. His fingers itched to feel the scratch of cool metal against the threads but he needed both hands to do that and there didn’t seem to be anywhere safe to put his work bag down. 

‘Ah, Mr Chandler! I’ve been meaning to get ahold of you,’ the landlord said as he came to a sloshing stop in Chandler’s line of sight, holding a borrowed mug in a loose fist. He paused and glanced around before continuing. ‘There’s been a… mishap.’

The best Chandler could manage was a desperate crook of his eyebrow. A mishap was accidentally stubbing your toe on the leg of a coffee table, not coming home from Whitechapel Police Station to find the majority of your belongings having an impromptu bath.

‘We’re not exactly sure what’s gone on yet, but a bit of the plumbing’s failed.’

Chandler spluttered. ‘Just a bit?’

‘Ah, well, it looks a lot worse than it is, Mr Chandler. Nothing our boys can’t sort out eventually.’

‘How soon is eventually?’ Chandler asked, glancing around to the workmen who were busily wrapping what was left of his furniture in plastic.

‘Ah. Yes,’ said the landlord, gesturing in Chandler’s direction with a half-eaten biscuit. ‘Now _that_ I don’t know at the moment.’

Chandler’s heart sunk. ‘You don’t know?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ The man shook his head and gestured to the left and right. ‘You and your neighbours on either side bore the brunt of it, see, so we’ll have to have a bit of a poke around to see what’s happened with the pipes an’ that, then there’ll be fixing whatever problems we find—and I’m sorry to say that I’ve been told there might be more instances of this in the interim. Then there’ll be cleaning the place up.’ 

‘A while, then.’

‘Oh, yes, definitely. You’ll want to find a sofa to sleep on, I should think.’

Chandler had never seriously considered sleeping on someone else’s sofa before, and immediately disliked the idea.

‘Or find a hotel, if you prefer. Insurance should cover it, with this mess.’

Just imagining the state of most hotel rooms was enough to make Chandler itch. Imagining the state of most hotel rooms that any insurance company would be happy covering made him want to scrub himself clean several times over.

‘And we’ll have to look at the electrics, too, while we’re at it. Just in case, you know.’

He pinched the bridge of his nose as the landlord slurped at his drink. ‘Right.’

‘Oh, and I hope you don’t mind I borrowed your kettle.’ He raised the mug with a smile. ‘Lovely tea, this.’

Chandler grimaced.

‘Anyway, we’d best crack on. I’ll tell them to stay out of your way until you’ve gathered your things. I’m sure you’ve got more important things to do than watch us mop up.’

The landlord didn’t wait for a reply; instead, he shoved one hand into a pocket and wandered away through the thin veil of water back to the kitchen, nudging a bucket into position with a shift of his elbow. Chandler flexed his fingers around the handle of his briefcase—where was he supposed to go from there? He’d managed to condense his life into a few essential details, but even his good work couldn’t fit everything into a generous overnight bag. Chandler didn’t really know where to start; he was more aware of the damp ends of his trousers than what things he’d need on a day-to-day basis. In a way it was sort of lucky that he had a mini-home setup in the office. He was just extending that, really, wasn’t he?

Chandler still wasn’t sure when he opened the doors to his wardrobe and wrestled out a bag he was almost sure he’d never used. He was tempted to use the relatively unscathed surface of his bed to fold his shirts and suits, but the splatting of water against plastic echoed in his mind as a bucket near his pillow corralled the droplets that fell from the ailing ceiling. It was as if the plumbing had a specific vendetta against Chandler’s side of the bed. Each tap was louder, stronger, more insistent, and before long he was squeezing his eyes shut against the reality of sound as he packed a bag. He wasn’t in the mood for this situation. He wasn’t in the mood for dealing with it, so he’d just do that when he could think _, think_ without the constant interruption reminding him of how dire he felt. So, instead, he pulled the plaid blanket that had spent its entire life draped over the back of his leather armchair into the top of the bag before zipping it closed and inspected his other pillow for liquid-related damage before shoving it under an arm.

It’d have to do.

His return through the flat involved more dodging around and ducking out of the way than the station did on a busy night. When Chandler wasn’t trying to avoid getting any more water on himself or his belongings than absolutely necessary, he was avoiding giving himself another black eye from one of the myriad pieces of equipment that were taking up residence on every available surface. He was just going to try and ignore the fact he probably just noticed a mechanical saw perched on his armchair. The large droplet that dripped onto his nose and trailed down one side of his cheek put paid to that.

The only stationary form in the entire place was his landlord, still perched against the side of Chandler’s kitchen counter sipping his drink. Occasionally he had to twist out of the way to avoid inadvertently watering down his tea, but other than that he didn’t seem bothered about the chaos rattling on around them.

Chandler winced as there was a crunching crash somewhere behind him. (He really didn’t want to know.) 

He came to a stop at the edge of the kitchen tile. The landlord looked at him expectantly, as if standing in one of his tenant’s water-drenched kitchens was an entirely normal situation and shouldn’t elicit any breed of panic at all.

‘Does this happen a lot, then? It’s just—’ Chandler gestured at the rubber boots.

‘No, no, not on my watch! It’s the country boy in me,’ he replied, wiggling one foot around as he chuckled. ‘Feels odd not to have a pair around. It’s quite nice, really—never had a proper use for them here before!’

Chandler couldn’t have possibly got out of there any faster than he did. 

After all, he wasn’t exactly attached to his flat.

*

He hadn’t managed to sort things out. In fact, the most Chandler had managed was to decide to spend the night in his car parked in the station car park, because as terrible as that idea was, it was miles better than any other conclusion. At least his car was _his_. No one had left bodily fluids in it that he didn’t know about. That was more than most hotels could offer. He had a better chance of getting a few hours rest in his car than he did in a hotel with God-knows-what on the sheets.

Even so, Chandler marched into the station as soon as it was reasonable. He felt marginally better in a new suit, although some part of him was certain it felt different for being unceremoniously packed into an inadequate bag for twelve hours. He couldn’t even achieve a false sense of clearheadedness with his desk organized just so, pen parallel to watch parallel to phone.

Chandler stared out into the empty incident room until the desks all blurred into one. He didn’t have any new ideas. A quick trip downstairs told him that even Ed wasn’t in yet, although judging from the open files on his desk he’d been there until late the night before. In the end, Chandler unlocked the filing cabinet in his office and picked a cold case file at random; a ten-year-old unsolved apparent mugging gone wrong was a decent enough distraction.

The rest of the team trickled in slowly, one by one, as the minute hand on Chandler’s watch inched closer to eight o’clock. One or two of them glanced in his direction but none made a move to talk to him; it wasn’t unusual for him to be there before everybody else. It would have been more out of the ordinary if he’d been late. It was only Miles that spotted something odd in his demeanour, though whether it was how he was sat or the look on his face or the fact that he hadn’t moved a page in the file for ten minutes that prompted him to wander up to his open door and brace himself against the doorframe.

Chandler looked up from the crime scene pictures between his elbows and caught Miles’ eye.

The older man crossed his arms, raised his eyebrows, and pointedly looked at his watch. ‘When did you set up shop, then?’

‘Quarter to six.’ A heavy sigh escaped with Chandler’s answer.

Miles whistled, low and disbelieving, as he took a seat opposite. ‘Early start for a slow day.’

Chandler hummed his assent, and ran his hands over his face. He’d barely been able to wrangle an hour’s peace, but that had been what he’d expected. He worked with detectives—he was a detective. The bag that was carefully balanced on the row of chairs wasn’t going to remain unnoticed for long.

He let Miles pull the file across the desk. The man was looking for an opening; Chandler might as well just give him one.

The sergeant frowned as he scanned the case notes. ‘This is ancient.’

‘Yes.’

The frown deepened infinitesimally. ‘It’s definitely not priority.’

‘No,’ Chandler admitted. ‘No, it’s not.’

Miles tutted and shoved the now-closed file between them. ‘What’s up with you, then?’

‘What?’

‘You’re having a wobbly.’

Miles sat back in the chair and crossed his hands in his lap. He spoke in a manner that implied he’d already made up his mind, and there was nothing Chandler could to do convince him otherwise. Which, if Chandler thought about it, was just a more extreme version of his usual tone—so Chandler took his usual stance. 

‘No, I’m not.’

The older man shook his head. ‘You are.’

‘All right,’ Chandler said, acquiescing too soon to convince anyone that he was fine, let alone his sergeant. ‘Maybe a little one—but it’s not me going mad, Miles.’ He scowled at Miles’ disbelieving glance, and exhaled heavily before speaking. ‘It’s my flat.’

‘What, has it kicked you out?’ Miles asked, jerking his head to the side. ‘Don’t think I haven’t noticed the elephant in the room.’

In a way, Chandler was glad that his team was still sharp, even if it did rob him of a degree of privacy.

Miles waved a hand in front of him, exasperated with the silence. ‘Go on, then.’

‘A pipe’s burst—or something, I don’t know, no one had any answers yesterday,’ Chandler said, the words tumbling over one another in their haste to get out. ‘But my flat’s soaked. Uninhabitable.’

‘Blimey.’

Chandler cringed as he spoke; although it had seemed like a decent enough idea at the time, there was a growing sense of embarrassment growing low in his stomach. ‘I may have spent last night in my car.’

Miles looked like he wanted to laugh, although he managed to smother the urge. ‘You must be shellshocked.’

Chandler couldn’t argue with that characterisation. He certainly felt as if he’d gone home to find his building levelled.

‘What are you going to do about it, then?’ Miles asked, sitting further forward in the chair.

Chandler scowled. ‘I don’t know.’

‘Well, you don’t have that many options. What about a hotel? There are some nice ones about, now.’

‘No,’ Chandler snapped. He didn’t want that, not on top of everything else. It was bad enough having his own home covered in liquid that spent most of its life in a filthy maze of pipes.

Miles sighed. ‘I expected as much.’

Neither of them mentioned the next obvious option: staying with someone else. Miles was all too aware that Chandler wasn’t exactly juggling a full social calendar. In fact, the only people who would take him in were all sat in the next room, but even their well-meaning offers would be a stretch. Chandler couldn’t believe that any of them wanted him in their spare room when they got more than enough of him at work.

The man sat opposite him seemed to have the same idea. ‘You’d know I’d offer you a cushion and a blanket if I could, except it’s only bloody London, isn’t it? We’ve virtually had to repurpose an airing cupboard for the baby. And I’m not sure you’d be too keen on the boys, either.’ Miles paused as he turned to look at the desks behind the glass windows. ‘I suppose that rules out Riley’s as well, doesn’t it?’ 

Chandler nodded, and his stomach curled around itself. It looked as if it was going to have to be a hotel after all.

‘The less said about Mansell’s flat the better,’ Miles continued, curling his lip at the mental image. Chandler winced; he’d never been to Mansell’s, but if his weddings were anything to go by, the accompanying flat would not be to his taste.

‘And Kent’s got the flatmate—’ Miles said, although he stopped abruptly as if hearing the words spoken reminded him of something. He paused, and glanced behind him through the open glass door, and turned back to meet Chandler’s puzzled gaze. ‘Or, at least, he did—’ 

Miles cut his own sentence short by jumping to his feet and marching to the door. ‘Oi! Kent!’ 

Chandler’s gaze flicked from the back of Miles’ head to the figure in question, who almost jumped out of his skin as the sergeant shouted his name. Kent was halfway through taking his coat off, and the sudden summoning to Chandler’s office just made it even more difficult to disentangle his arm. Still, it was strangely familiar to see him place the fabric over the back of his chair, adjusting the shoulders so they wouldn’t be pulled out of shape, before smoothing the front of his suit jacket and making his way around the menagerie of desks, filing cabinets and whiteboards towards the enclosed office. 

‘Skip?’ he said, an acknowledgment and a question in one, as he walked through the doorway. Miles stepped aside to make room for him to stand, and Kent nodded at Chandler with a slightly concerned expression. ‘Sir.’ 

Miles shut the door behind him. ‘You still looking for a flatmate?’

‘Um, sort of,’ Kent said, coming to a halt just in front of the chairs and glancing between Miles, Chandler, and his hands.

‘What do you mean, sort of?’ Miles pressed, with a smile. ‘Got half a person living there, have you?’

‘No. No, I was thinking I’d just find a studio or something when the lease is up,’ Kent said, his voice steady but his brow slightly furrowed. ‘Can’t be bothered breaking in another housemate.’

Miles beamed. ‘Well, what do you know. I’ve got one here who’s already house-trained.’

Kent frowned properly this time, bewilderment flitting across his features. ‘Sir?’

‘That’s precisely who I was referring to.’

Chandler started. ‘Miles—’

The sergeant wasn’t listening. He was pointedly deciding to speak only to Kent, ignoring Chandler’s half-baked excuses, even though the constable kept shooting the blond odd glances. Chandler reckoned the younger man was uncomfortable with the idea but he never let his gaze linger long enough for a proper look.

‘His flat’s underwater,’ Miles continued, gesturing vaguely in Chandler’s direction as if he wasn’t sat virtually in-between them. ‘Right mess, apparently. You’ve still got a room?’

Kent worried the sleeve of his jacket, but held Miles’ gaze. ‘Yeah.’

‘Right then. Chuck him in it for a few nights.’

Chandler tried again. ‘ _Miles_ —’

‘It’s for your own good,’ Miles said tersely. ‘You couldn’t lead an investigation into who ate my last chocolate biscuit running on a quick kip in your car.’

Kent had the audacity to look a bit guilty, but Miles didn’t notice.

‘Honestly, sir,’ Kent started, addressing Chandler properly for the first time. ‘I don’t mind.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Yeah,’ Kent said, a small smile playing at the edges of his mouth. ‘It’s been a bit quiet since Mark went, anyway.’

Chandler smiled back, soft and sincere in its hesitancy. ‘It won’t be for long.’

‘I’ve only got a couple more months on the lease,’ Kent replied with a gentle shrug.

‘Right. That’s all sorted, then,’ Miles said, grinning, before turning on his heel and leaving Chandler and Kent staring awkwardly at each other.

Chandler broke the tension by tapping the case file vertically against his desk, adding it into alignment next to his phone. As much as he didn’t like the idea of living with another human in such close proximity and had no real inkling to give flatsharing a go, Kent’s flat wasn’t a terrible idea. He could manage for a week or so— _manage_ being a subjective term.

‘I suppose you need to know where you’ll be living, then, sir,’ Kent said with a half smile, removing his notebook and a pen from his jacket pocket as he spoke. ‘It’s not that far from here.’

He braced the leather-bound pages against the palm of his hand and pulled the cap off the pen with his teeth. The pen scraped over the paper, nowhere near as smooth as the Montblanc that Chandler nudged back into place, and the paper tore away neatly with a flick of Kent’s wrist.

After a brief proofread, Kent stepped between the chairs facing Chandler and held out the sheet. ‘Quilter Street. The one with the bright yellow door, opposite Jesus Green.’

Chandler took the page from his outstretched hand, unreasonably pleased that the perforated edge of Kent’s notebook had done its job properly. The black ink stood proud against the soft white paper, a gentle grey grid guiding each letter. He memorized the address in an instant but still felt an instinct to keep the reminder. 

‘I’ll see you after the shift, then,’ Chandler said as he gradually returned his gaze to Kent’s open face.

The constable smiled, eyes warm, and nodded. ‘Yes, sir.’

Chandler looked back to the paper in his hand as Kent crossed back into the incident room. The letters sat between his fingers, quiet and unassuming; block capitals, slightly inclined, left-leaning. The pen hadn’t started properly, leaving the leg of the first number shadowed by a patchy double. Chandler had seen the script before, possibly hundreds of times, plastered across official police documents. He’d never really thought about it being Kent’s, although he knew it was familiar. He knew all their handwriting: Miles had the style of someone who was taught properly once but the formation of letters progressively deteriorated, Riley’s was rounded and half-cursive, Mansell’s was closer to chicken scratchings than anything else but at least it was legible.

Chandler didn’t know when Kent’s had became familiar instead of just recognizable. He didn’t quite know when those two sensations had become separate, either.

The rectangular paper folded easily into a smaller square in Chandler’s fingers, and fit more than comfortably in his jacket pocket.

He didn’t know why it didn’t weigh heavier on his mind.

*

As much as a grisly triple-murder would have cleared up Chandler’s problems for a few days, a grisly triple-murder never came. Not even a singular murder, or a botched stabbing, or a hooded teenager making off with an old lady’s shopping. All in all, it had been a terrifically boring day of paperwork for all of them. It was entirely possible they’d consumed their combined body weights in tea.

Chandler had been left with altogether far too much time to contemplate the approaching evening. In a way it was lucky that nothing had been called in; if they’d been poking around a crime scene he would have definitely needed to pop home and change, except he couldn’t have done that without Kent coming with him which sort of defeated the point. Instead, he’d sat in the station all too aware of the overnight bag in the corner of one eye and Miles’ satisfied smirk in the corner of the other.

He wasn’t really sure which one of those things was worse.

Either way, when the end of the shift beckoned and he couldn’t find any more forms to fill in, Chandler shrugged on his coat and escaped to his car. He probably should have said something to Kent before he went, but he’d been speaking to Riley in such an animated fashion that Chandler hadn’t wanted to butt in. It wasn’t as if Kent wasn’t expecting him, anyway; Chandler didn’t think inviting somebody to stay for a few days was the sort of thing you’d forget about. He definitely wouldn’t— _couldn’t_.

He was starting to think Kent might have forgotten, though, once he’d spent ten minutes waiting next to the only yellow lacquered door in a row of terraced houses. Chandler was vaguely conscious that he could just be loitering outside someone’s sitting room window, but the metal numbers below the letterbox were the same ones that Kent had scrawled down on paper. He glanced at his watch and sighed; perhaps he should have organized this. Kent could have gone out for a drink after work with the others. They often did, after a quiet day. Chandler silently scolded himself, flinching away from the crumbling grey brick when he leant too close. He should have known it was a bad idea. 

Only when the metallic orange of Kent’s moped rounded the corner, approaching the street from the opposite direction, did Chandler manage to feel relieved. He didn’t feel like the couple wandering around the small park were keeping as close an eye on him as Kent came to a rumbling stop next to the curb, smiling widely as he removed his helmet.

‘You found it all right, then?’ Kent dismounted as he spoke.

‘Yeah.’ He kept his hands in his pockets as Kent fiddled with the bike, and nodded vaguely into the general vicinity. ‘It’s a nice area.’

Chandler didn’t mention that it felt too trendy for him. He might have taken a lot of ribbing for being a posh fast-tracker in a Savile Row suit but even that was out of place in Bethnal Green. The ‘ _posh_ ’ bit wasn’t much help, either, in East London. He was neither voguish nor gritty enough to feel at ease. Then again he wouldn’t have thought that Kent fit his idea of a typical London youth either, and he seemed to manage well enough. 

‘It was Mark that pushed for it more than me,’ Kent continued, glancing up and down the street as he walked to stand beside Chandler. ‘But it was close enough to the station and comfortable, so I wasn’t too fussed.’ He hitched his helmet more securely under his arm. ‘We were dead lucky, though.’

There was something wistful about the way Kent talked about the place, like resignation to an oncoming doom, and a fondness in his gaze that Chandler couldn’t muster for his flat even when it was spotless.

‘Mark?’ Chandler prompted while Kent examined his keys.

‘The flatmate before you. He only moved out a couple of weeks ago, for a new job.’ Kent paused. He raised a hand to the couple in the park, and got a mirrored greeting in return. ‘You’d have liked him. He was an environmental health officer for the council.’

‘Where’s he gone now?’

‘Taunton, of all places. I suppose he reckons he’ll get to work at Glastonbury every year.’

Chandler couldn’t possibly think of a more uncomfortable situation than a music festival in a mud-slathered field in Somerset, but he knew a large chunk of the population thought it was the best thing on the planet. Mark must have been one of them; it didn’t give Chandler much confidence in the state of the rooms he was borrowing.

Kent must have noticed his face, because he grinned before turning back to the keys in his hand. ‘Someone’s got to make sure the food stalls aren’t inadvertently poisoning everyone.’

As much as he was relieved to hear that there was some semblance of law and order in a place so riddled with chaos, Chandler’s returning smile felt crooked.

Chandler could hear the slip of the lock as Kent spoke again with a shrug of one shoulder. ‘Anyway, Jess’s family are from down there and she’s been wanting to go back for ages, so…’

The words fell away as he twisted the doorknob and pushed inwards. Chandler was tempted to ask, to prompt the answers for all the questions Kent had just placed in his mind—who was Jess? What did she have to do with Mark? Were they both in Somerset, now? Had this Jess stayed with them, in this flat?—but the enthusiastic red of the entryway distracted him. The policeman’s instinct died away when faced with bright wall colours, evidently. He hadn’t really thought of Kent as someone who’d go for statement walls.  

Chandler followed Kent’s example and stepped inside, gently closing the door behind him. ‘How long have you lived here?’

Kent threw his keys on the nearby sideboard. ‘Mark and I? Four years. Elena cleared off eighteen months ago, but the less said about her the better.’

Chandler doubted that, but ignored as best he could the twinge of welling panic low in his stomach in favour of following Kent across the threshold and into the sitting room.  It was more homely than the clean lines Chandler favoured in his flat, but not muddled. White walls—unscuffed, reassuring—were interrupted by the full bookshelves on either side of a small, clean fireplace, and where the building allowed framed band posters adorned the walls. Chandler, of course, didn’t recognize any of them. Why would he? The discarded issues of the Radio Times on the coffee table were more his speed, after all.

‘It’s… nice,’ Chandler said, lying a light hand on the back of the brown leather sofa.

‘What did you expect?’ Kent grinned at him. ‘No, it’s been great here. But I’d have been out even sooner if Mark hadn’t agreed to cover his bit of the rent until the end of the lease.’

Kent moved further into the room as he finished speaking, and Chandler instinctively followed his lead. The younger man deposited his helmet on the end of what Chandler could only assume was his desk, as it housed a silver laptop and some haphazardly labelled files.

‘I’ll have to have a bit of a look around for Mark’s key,’ he continued, gesturing to a vague point behind Chandler’s shoulder as he shifted through a few of the papers. ‘It’s around here somewhere. Safe and sound—and lost.’

Chandler huffed a laugh and found that he rather enjoyed the smile he got in return. Odd feeling, that. What was even more bewildering was the fact that he was rather sure it wasn’t exactly unfamiliar. He shook it off, though, when Kent passed him and made towards an open archway.

The galley kitchen was much like the entryway, with its cherry-red walls standing still behind white cabinets and light wooden surfaces. The click of their shoes was different against the grey tile, though, and the large windows shone cool warmth onto the stainless steel sink whose draining board still bore the ceramic evidence of Kent’s breakfast. Chandler glanced out the window as Kent opened drawers one by one; he hadn’t expected to be greeted with a view to a small paved garden, the small trees and bushes attempting to conceal next door’s brick wall. It was the sort of place you wouldn’t have been surprised to find a friendly ginger tabby curled up in the sun—if you hadn’t been in London.

Chandler was surprised to find that he thought Kent looked quite at home.

(He didn’t really know what he _had_ expected.)

Kent moved from drawer to drawer, muttering a soft curse as one caught the edge of his jacket as he closed it too vigorously. He twisted a dial on the radio on his way to opening the adjoining drawer, quickly softening a strained-sounding interview with a political personality of some sort. The movement was almost reflexive, and there was a certain staccato quality to Kent’s gesture that indicated a tinge of self-consciousness. Chandler made a bit of a show of checking his phone, but kept an eye on the movement out of a corner of his eye. 

‘The radio?’ Chandler prompted, suppressing the urge to wipe a few stray crumbs from the side of the toaster.

Kent shot the offending machinery a weary look before moving on to the next drawer. ‘I never used to. But, after the Krays…’ He trailed off as he shuffled through a pile of knackered takeaway menus. ‘It helped. It… cut through the silence.’

He didn’t offer any more. Chandler didn’t press for any more information; he knew the tone of voice. He used it himself enough, and the incident in question was difficult for all of them (to put it lightly). Still, though, as Kent tried the next drawer down Chandler couldn’t help but wonder about the subtleties of Kent’s answer, the careful use of the past tense. After all, the radio was still on. 

‘A- _ha_!’

Kent’s pleased exclamation distracted him just enough from his thoughts to bring back his own self-consciousness. Chandler slipped his phone back into his coat pocket before Kent turned to him, crouched over the still-open door and brandishing a key between his thumb and forefinger.

‘That’ll be yours, then,’ he said, heaving himself to his feet and nudging the door shut with a bent leg.

Chandler reached out and took the key from Kent’s outstretched hand, wasting no time in bending it onto his already crowded key ring.

Kent continued through the silence. ‘I’d give you one for the back door as well, except I don’t think we have more than one.’

Chandler squinted at the door in the corner of the room, and glanced over his shoulder as the metal slid against metal and Kent’s key lay next to his own. ‘You can’t get to it without coming through the front door, can you?’ 

‘No. No, you can’t,’ Kent said with a degree of overdone contemplation. ‘Maybe through next door’s garden, but we’ve never been that drunk.’

Chandler couldn’t help but think that was a debatable point. After all, he’d seen Kent get more than a little tipsy at several separate work functions; then again, that was with free drinks. It would have seemed an injustice not to drink them while they were there. He grinned anyway, because that’s what he was supposed to do, wasn’t it?

‘I’ll just go and get my things,’ he said as the gesture fell away from his mouth.

Kent hummed an assenting opinion just as the interview descended into two guests speaking over each other. Chandler turned and made his way back to his car, leaving Kent to listen to the fallout. The leather handles dug into his palms as the Range Rover beeped closed, and for the first time that day Chandler found he was glad to be going back to Kent’s. The thought itself was odd, and he would have insisted that it had nothing to do with the fact he was going back to _Kent’s_ , specifically, but he had a creeping feeling that his presence might have had something to do with how calmly he was dealing with the whole thing. After all, Kent had been accommodating him since the first time he’d walked into Whitechapel. He was good at it, now. Always was.

The door was still open a touch when he returned, and he nudged it with his shoulder until there was enough room for both him and the bag. Kent stood sorting out the post, his coat now draped over a hook instead of his shoulders, though when Chandler pushed the door shut and flicked the latch (out of habit, more than anything) he placed the envelopes in a neat pile on the side table behind him.

‘Come on, then,’ he said, smiling as he moved towards the staircase.

Chandler followed, and soon found that the upstairs was as inoffensive as the downstairs. Perhaps ‘inoffensive’ was an odd word to use to describe the small, clear landing and its three doors but it was the one that jumped into Chandler’s head.

‘Here you go.’ Kent nudged open the door directly opposite the top of the stairs. ‘I’m pretty sure Mark cleared the place out properly.’

(Chandler desperately hoped so. He wasn’t really ever in the mood for unsavoury surprises.)

The room beyond the open door wasn’t much more than a made bed, two end tables and a lamp. Chandler was relieved; it didn’t feel too personal. A few books and CDs were perched on a set of built-in shelves, but their presence was overpowered by the anonymity of grey linen curtains and a plain area rug. The room was larger than he’d expected—almost as large as his own, in fact—but then again, none of his assumptions about Kent’s living arrangements had been right. 

Kent ran a hand through his hair and pushed through the half-occupied doorway when he laid eyes on the shelf. ‘Sorry about all this. It’s just some stuff that Mark nicked off me and never got around to giving back.’ He paused, and Chandler could just imagine his exasperated expression. ‘Until he’d buggered off, of course, but even then he just left me to find it.’ 

Chandler couldn’t help but recognise the title third from the bottom; it was one of the books he’d pushed on the team for the Ripper case. He honestly hadn’t thought any of them would have bothered keeping the things.

‘I’ll just—’ Kent reached to wrap an arm around the unstable heap.

‘It’s—it’s fine,’ Chandler said, walking fully into the room and placing his bag on the end of the bed. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

Kent dropped his outstretched hand, glancing back at Chandler with a half-formed nervous smile. Chandler was just wondering what on earth _Kent_ had to be nervous about when the younger man let out a short laugh and tapped the cover of the book that formed the apex of the pile. 

‘I bought another copy of this. Only got halfway through before this one disappeared.’ 

Chandler didn’t even have a chance to smile his sympathy before Kent’s hand slid across the book’s cover and fell to his side. He was quick to return to the doorway, giving Chandler a wide berth as he manoeuvred between him and the bed.

Kent turned back to face him once he was stood slightly on the landing. ‘I’ll try not to bother you.’

A smile tugged at the corner of Chandler’s mouth. ‘Aren’t I supposed to be saying that?’

Kent shrugged. ‘Not much bothers me, sir.’

Chandler didn’t have an answer to that. Kent patted the doorjamb in the ensuing silence, and soon turned to walk downstairs without fuss. Chandler was left stood in the unfamiliar bedroom, his overnight bag nestled into an unfamiliar duvet, with an unfamiliar view out of the bright window. Yet it wasn’t those things that made him frown at the dark wood floor beneath his feet; Kent’s parting words lingered, transfixed by his confusion.

DC Kent— he was the one who _was_ bothered. Not every time, of course, and it wasn’t as if everyone else wasn’t but when it was warranted the feelings were there, behind his eyes and betrayed by the tension in his back. Miles had said he had a cry in a car park, or in the loos, when it all got too much. Kent had come to him, mumbling about djinns and aswangs lurking in the dark, and hadn’t said a word in the car that night. Kent hated the suicides, the trips to hospitals, the fistfights where one bloke pulled a knife. And he had every right to.

So, Chandler reckoned he was bothered.

Unless he was over-thinking the entire thing and taking it to the _n_ th degree instead of sticking with the first. Kent had plainly had a lifetime of flatmates; Chandler couldn’t have possibly been a patch on an even slightly rowdy one. He wasn’t about to start racking up the phone bill or having raves or coming in drunk. (He wasn’t even a shouty drunk.) Very few people would complain about having a flatmate who likes having the place tidy. Of course, he was a bit more extreme than that, but the point still stood.

If Chandler kept very quiet, barely breathing, he could hear Kent moving around downstairs, the slip of socks against a creaking floor. It wasn’t as odd as he’d expected it to be, so when the chimes of Westminster announced the beginning of the six o’clock news, he began to transfer his rumpled clothes into the empty wardrobe.

* 

Chandler woke the next morning not having known he’d fallen asleep. The cotton against his cheek felt familiar, but nothing else did. Something deep in his psyche told him it should, though, as he blinked the sleep away from his eyes and stared blearily at the headboard.

A few empty moments passed before the reality of his location hit him. That happened more and more often as he got older; the less time spent away from home, the more time it took him to get used to the idea that he wasn’t there. Chandler groaned softly, taking note of the morning light peeking around the paltry set of curtains, and heaved himself onto his elbows. Remembering he was in Kent’s spare room in the early hours of the morning was a sobering thought. Even the skin-warmed sheets couldn’t have coaxed him back to sleep in the face of a chilly morning.

He rolled over under the heavy duvet and reached for his phone, the side of his hand skimming the cool metal cap of his Tiger Balm and the leather of his wristwatch that he’d lined up the night before. (A ritual he could take anywhere.) The screen gave him nothing except a suspiciously sarcastic text from Miles asking if he’d ‘ _settled in all right?_ ’ which Chandler pointedly deleted. He didn’t need Miles’ particular brand of humour when he was still in pyjamas. That would be pushing the boat out a bit far. He’d be getting the brunt of it at work if a body or two didn’t wash up in the next few hours. The mere thought—either of them, Miles’ knowing smirk or a partially decomposed body—was enough to push a heavy, resigned sigh out of his lungs. When the empty ceiling offered no commiseration, Chandler ran one hand over his face and used the other to throw back the covers.

There didn’t seem to be anything else for him to do besides get up; office hours didn’t change because his bed had, and they’d have to get used to the idea of sharing the toaster eventually. Chandler was glad the floor didn’t creak as he heaved himself to his feet, for he wouldn’t expect anyone to rise quite as early as he did. He definitely didn’t want to disrupt Kent’s routine, since they so rarely had a chance to actually _have_ a proper one.

He tried to make sure he moved around the small upstairs quietly. It wasn’t entirely natural to him. Chandler was used to having an entire flat to himself, after all, but he wasn’t a particularly loud man in any sense of the word. The only real obstacle was deciphering the shower. Chandler was sure that there was nothing more demeaning to one’s intelligence as trying to unravel the mystery of someone else’s bathroom. Even so, once he’d figured out that the cold and hot indicators were entirely backwards the rest of his makeshift routine was straightforward. It wasn’t even that different from being at home. The gentle traffic noise from the other side of the window was almost familiar by the time he’d finished.

The brief calm he’d found in the stillness fell away when he came closer to the idea of a shared breakfast. Well, not _shared_ but eaten at the same time and in the same place. Chandler toyed with the idea of just eating and going in before Kent got up, but the plan struck him as both cowardly and rather rude. It wasn’t as if he and Kent hadn’t eaten together before, but when they were at work there was an expected protocol that was easy to fall into. In Kent’s flat… well, Chandler couldn’t even decide what ‘suitable attire’ was for breakfast in Kent’s flat. He eventually settled on what he usually wore, sans coat and jacket, for a veil of normalcy in a situation he reckoned he could easily make feel too formal.

He checked his cufflinks and tie in the mirror at the top of the stairs before his feet began their descent, but he still rolled the metal pins between his fingers instead of gripping the banister. His coat still hung next to Kent’s, casting a long shadow that crossed onto the bottom stair, and the only other indication Kent had even been there overnight was a well-thumbed paperback that had been added to the mound of Radio Times and the television remote left stuck between the cushions of the sofa.

Chandler wandered over and straightened the pile before glancing through to the adjoining room. He started when he realised that Kent was already installed at the kitchen table, sipping from a mug of tea while his other hand slid across the trackpad of his laptop. Framed by the white wood of the open archway, he sat in a patch of warm morning sun cast on the glass-topped table from the back door. Kent didn’t seem to have noticed Chandler’s arrival and for a moment Chandler froze, deciding on how to announce himself as the constable’s eyes darted to and fro across the screen.

The detective inspector cleared his throat awkwardly as he walked into the room. ‘Morning.’

‘Good morning, sir,’ Kent replied, apparently unfazed. ‘Kettle’s already on.’

Chandler turned to the low rumbling sound behind him, unsure of exactly what to say. ‘Thank you.’

Kent looked up at him for a brief moment before gesturing to the opposite counter. ‘And the open loaf’s in the bread bin.’ 

It felt too redundant to thank him again but as Chandler turned to get on with making his breakfast, it was gratitude that swelled in his chest. Or, at least, that’s what it must have been, because Kent made the entire situation seem… ordinary. As if having your boss wandering around in your house wasn’t odd in the least. There wasn’t any fuss, even after Chandler opened three different cabinets trying to find a mug, and he preferred it that way. He might have even thought about describing it as nice.

The fact that Kent was sat there, still in his pyjamas, struck Chandler. It was so different he couldn’t help but look, his gaze thrown over his shoulder. He was used to Kent in a suit, except for the few times the situation has called for being casual—but even then, it wasn’t the same. The younger man’s curly hair was unruly, his eyes still a bit dulled from sleep. The band t-shirt looked a little too small for Kent’s shoulders, its design already inscrutable to Chandler’s untrained eye and cracked with age. It only vaguely coordinated with the plaid bottoms, but when had what someone slept in ever matched? The entire image was relaxed, and for a moment Chandler could have convinced himself he could be the same. Kent obviously didn’t mind him being there. 

He flinched as Kent switched from looking at his laptop screen to meeting Chandler’s curious gaze. The older man turned away reflexively, inspecting the bottom of the mug he’d placed before him, but some unknown instinct forced his eyes back in Kent’s direction. They found a smile twitching at the corner of Kent’s mouth, a shadow of morning scruff on his chin. 

‘It won’t take me long, sir. I’ll be in on time.’

The words were good-natured, the smile just on the right side of teasing. Chandler’s mouth may have returned the smile, but if he had it was too brief and too light for him to be sure. The warmth of embarrassment spread through his limbs as Kent’s misinterpretation of his interest sunk in, though when Kent turned back to his tea it lessened.

He’d just about managed to relax when kettle clicked, and Chandler focused on pouring the boiling water instead of wondering if that prickling feeling on the back of his neck was Kent watching him.


	2. Chapter 2

It was dark the first time Chandler went back on his own.

The previous couple of days had been as dull as the first—nothing but paperwork, tea, the threat of an impending audit and another one of Ed’s powerpoints—and it made the stabbing that landed on Chandler’s desk that morning all the more pressing. Miles’ statistics had proved themselves for the umpteenth time, though, in that what could have been a recreation of a century-old murder spree turned out to be a mugging gone wrong. A rather clumsy one, at that—Miles only had to wander into the closest pub to inquire about the toilets before he found the fella who did it. Only a child, really, but one with blood on his hands. 

The rest of the shift was more smoothly run, with forms filled out and interviews conducted and a confession easily extracted. Almost everything had been sorted out by the end of shift, so Chandler had sent everybody else home as he signed off on the last of the paperwork and clutched the wire wastepaper basket to his ribs. Even Miles had gone home, a little after Chandler had sent him away, but not before cornering him with his pertinent questions. 

‘How is it, then?’ Miles asked, coat in hand. ‘At Kent’s?’

Chandler dropped the paper airplane in his hand back on to the constable in question’s desk. It felt a bit odd, now, interfering with his desk at work when he was already interfering with him out of hours. But Kent knew, didn’t he?

Miles must have sensed his hesitation, and confronted it with a low chuckle. ‘Not had a domestic already, have we?’

‘No.’ Chandler’s reply was a bit too emphatic, so he deserved the crooked smile Miles wore as he shrugged on the coat. The detective inspector struggled to find words that could exemplify his experience, limited though it was. ‘Well, it’s certainly different… but I don’t think it’s necessarily worse.’

The answer must have passed muster, because Miles just raised his eyebrows and marched out of the incident room, leaving Chandler to stare into the pile of crumpled paper encased in metal cradled against his side.

He hadn’t lied, then, not to Miles. Not even to himself. Cohabitation hadn’t been as awkward and unbearable as he’d expected it to be. Both he and Kent had originally started by giving each other a wide berth, gauging the situation. They found themselves ending up in the same room before long, under the pretense of a drink or a better light or a more convenient wall socket, with a gentle lull of conversation that brought a more comfortable silence. The previous night found them occupying the same piece of furniture: Kent on one end of the sofa with his laptop perched on his knee, Chandler on the other with his nose in a book his mind was only half interested in. The news prattled on in the background; occasionally a comedian wandered onto the evening programming. Chandler was more fascinated in when Kent laughed, and at what, than the jokes themselves.

And wasn’t that an odd thought?

It flitted away from Chandler’s mind as he walked along the pavement, away from where he’d parked his car. The yellow of Kent’s door was visible even through the fog of early-fallen darkness, and there was no detectable apprehension in Chandler’s stomach as he approached. It had slowly left him and the ensuing void prompted an odd conviction that he should be concerned about something, somewhere. Chandler wasn’t used to such calm, and had no idea where it had come from.

Kent’s key jumped out at him from the bundle of metal in his palm, a flash of tarnished brass in a sea of silver. When had he become so used to its incongruity, its presence so expected when it was so out of place? Chandler shook the concern away as best he could as his fingers pushed the metal into its matched lock, another piece of Kent’s life that seemed to fit quite easily into Chandler’s consciousness. He pushed the door in with a nudge from his shoulder; sometimes it needed that, on a warm day.

The first thing he noticed about the flat was the presence of a sound that was decidedly not Radio 4. Even so, Chandler ignored it as he shut the door and made sure it was locked, rattling the door to test the latch’s efficacy. It was only when he was hanging up his coat, the red silk lining slick against the rough scarlet wall, that he actually thought about what he was hearing. He knew Kent was at home—he’d passed the moped on his way in—so the sound (music, _music_ … could it be called music?) was his doing.

Chandler glanced into the sitting room, but found it empty apart from a slightly louder echo of the tinny rhythm. He followed it, as any detective would, interested despite the fact the music was about as far from his sort of thing as you could get. It wasn’t even the sort of thing he’d been led to believe they played on Radio 1 and wasn’t that supposed to be the worst of the worst of pop music? Then again, he couldn’t imagine the electronic bassline or the metallic guitar or the relentless drums being described as pop music. That being said, he wasn’t exactly a musical connoisseur, so what it would be coined escaped him. 

It didn’t really matter, though, when he made his way through the living room and came to a stop in front of the kitchen. Kent’s laptop was perched on the end of the counter (far enough away from the sink to keep Chandler’s anxieties at bay), dutifully trying to belt out a song that its meager speakers had no place playing. Kent, on the other hand, paid no heed to its struggle as he loped around the room in a pair of old jeans and another in a line of band t-shirts that Chandler couldn’t recognize, humming as he went. He murmured some of the lyrics under his breath, the words obviously second nature as he poured boiling water over a tea bag. The young constable even tapped out the beat against the side of his thigh as he scoped out the inside of the fridge.

Chandler cleared his throat, but his announcement was overrun by the crescendo of what he presumed must have been the chorus. He huffed to himself, one hand flexing around where it held the doorframe, as he waited for an appropriate lull.

‘Kent!’

The younger man jumped—half out of his skin, judging by the look on his face.

‘You’re back,’ he said, wide-eyed and watching as Chandler stepped closer and pushed the fridge door shut. ‘Sir.’

Chandler was mildly concerned about Kent’s use of the honourific when they were standing in his kitchen, most definitely not on duty (one of them was even in socks), but it was Kent himself that concerned him more. His usually bright eyes were incredulous, slightly dazed; Chandler hadn’t meant to sneak up on him. Yet, as the younger man stood in front of him catching his breath—control slipped and fixed—it was painfully obvious that he had. The instinct to apologise (profusely) was tempered by Chandler’s knowledge that it would just embarrass the both of them.

He decided to say it anyway—unease be damned, for once—but Kent regained the ability to speak quicker than Chandler could gather the words.

‘I’ll just…’ Kent trailed off, his voice oddly soft, but his intent to speak dampened Chandler’s. He turned away from Chandler’s concerned, curious gaze and moved towards the laptop with his fine fingers hovering over the keyboard until he found the right key. The sound of guitar and drums lessened with each tap. ‘Sorry—’

‘No, don’t,’ Chandler said, palm outstretched in a gesture he didn’t quite recognise. ‘Not on my account.’

Kent let the music continue, but at a level that was barely perceptible. ‘You’re a guest.’

‘In _your_ house,’ Chandler continued, offering an open smile to Kent’s wary face. ‘The last thing I’d want to do is interfere.’ 

Kent’s face slipped into a smile in the moment of silence that followed; he bit his lip, the flesh slipping from behind a canine as he increased the volume by a couple of notches. Chandler felt all of the muscles in his throat as he swallowed. He wasn’t supposed to feel such relief at Kent’s lightening mood, or watch the flick of his wrist so closely. He hadn’t even realised he was doing it until after his constable turned back to face him.

‘If you say so, sir,’ Kent said as he shoved a hand into his jeans pocket and walked back to where he’d left his tea. ‘Wouldn’t have thought it was your thing, though.’

Chandler thought that it wasn’t the sort of thing he’d have guessed Kent was into either, but he laughed and forced all his limbs to relax. ‘It’s certainly not. That doesn’t mean it bothers me, though, if you enjoy it.’

Kent looked as if he was close to blushing. ‘Sorry about the awful speakers, then. I’ve just not got this on CD, and apparently I’m a Luddite because I’ve not got any other gear to plug it into, either.’

Chandler wondered what on earth that made him, because he had no idea what sort of _other gear_ Kent was talking about.

‘No, it’s fine,’ he said, resting his hands in his pockets in an attempt to appear nonchalant. ‘I’ve heard worse.’

Other people might have taken his remark as a sly insult or a veiled scolding, and Chandler’s life was full of incidents where he’d been chronically misunderstood. Kent, on the other hand, read his brief smile and the shift in his shoulders and the rare lightness in his voice—and he smiled back. 

Kent bent to rifle through a cupboard, and reappeared brandishing a frying pan. ‘Bacon buttie, sir?’

Chandler frowned, a bit startled by the lack of a segue. He paused, considering, and it was Kent’s hopeful expression that made up his mind. ‘Yeah. All right.’

The younger man grinned and spun the pan with a flourish in his hand as he laid it on the hob. Chandler could feel his face shift out of concern and into amusement. The embarrassment that nipped at his heels fell away—as much as it was likely to without the separation of a night’s sleep—and he just might have felt like he belonged as he stepped out of the way to let Kent get to the fridge. He didn’t even feel a compulsion to excuse himself and let him get on with it. After all, he’d just been invited to dinner, hadn’t he? 

Kent turned and offered a toothy grin as he opened the packet in his hands. 

‘Go on,’ he said, inclining his head. ‘Help yourself to a drink.’

For once, Chandler gladly did.

*

Chandler brought home sushi the following night. After all, it was the least he could do after Kent’s afternoon of typing up witness statements from that morning’s arrest. The whole affair may have been a open-and-shut case—an argument between rivals that resulted in several counts of grievous bodily harm—but the sheer amount of people standing around the altercation made for an intimidating pile of forms. 

Kent clattered down the stairs just as Chandler was unpacking the shopping—he’d noticed Kent was running low on milk, and butter, and only had one yogurt left—and although there was a lurch in his step when he must have noticed Chandler head-first in his fridge, he greeted him with a wide smile.

‘Oh, hello,’ he said, slowing to a meandering gait as he walked behind Chandler. ‘You did the shopping.’

‘A bit of it,’ Chandler qualified, straightening as a shot of insecurity lay like lead in the pit of his stomach. ‘You don’t mind, do you?’

‘No, of course not!’ Kent chuckled good-naturedly as he laid a finger on the packets of sushi Chandler had left on the counter. ‘What, didn’t you enjoy your foray into pork-based sandwiches?’

‘I’ll have you know I do own a frying pan,’ he replied as he balled up the plastic bag and dropped it in the bin.

‘Ah, but do you _use_ it?’

Chandler just grinned, an honest emotion crossing his face for the single brief moment that he let it. It was odd, really, to see someone so comfortable with him. There was always an undercurrent with most people—Miles was always on the lookout, Ed wasn’t as oblivious as he sometimes seemed—but Kent just _was_. It was a change—possibly even a nice one—but Chandler couldn’t help but feel paradoxically uncomfortable. His own ease triggered his unease. An infinite loop.

Kent pushed away from where he’d leant against the counter and produced chopsticks from the end drawer. ‘Come on, then. I’ve had nothing but rich tea biscuits all day.’ 

It took Chandler a moment to regain control over his limbs as he was still rather confused by the entire situation. He did turn to retrieve their food, however, and straightened the toaster before returning his attention to Kent.

‘Why rich tea?’ he called out as he followed the younger man to the table.

Kent shrugged as he pressed chopsticks into one of Chandler’s hands in exchange for one of the boxes. ‘Necessity. Someone finished all the Hobnobs.’

‘I’d have just gone without, if that was the only other option,’ he replied, taking the seat opposite the garden door.

Kent grinned and stretched to retrieve the soy sauce from a cupboard. ‘If you soak them long enough, it doesn’t feel like you’re chewing on cardboard.’ 

‘I’ll have to give that a go, then.’

‘I wouldn’t.’

Chandler fought the impulse to laugh, and lost. 

* 

The scene that followed the meal—one with Chandler clearing up and Kent watching over two mugs of steeping tea—was oddly domestic. If anyone had told Chandler when he’d seen his drenched living room that a week later he’d be carrying a steaming mug into Kent’s living room and feeling entirely comfortable about it, he’d have wondered exactly what they’d been drinking. That being said, he still didn’t quite believe it himself; he rationalised it by reminding himself that Kent was probably just glad to have someone around. As far as Chandler could tell, he’d spent much of his time after leaving home living with flatmates. Suddenly having the place to himself must have been a bit of a shock. 

Watching the liquid level with a careful eye, Chandler sank onto the sofa with his mug in hand. Kent slid his along the surface of the coffee table, leaving it to sit in front of his habitual place before he turned on his socked heel. Chandler had an odd impulse to turn and watch him go; he fought it, although he could think of several times in the past few days when he hadn’t.

Kent’s voice echoed through from the kitchen. ‘I’ve just got ginger biscuits.’

‘That’s fine,’ Chandler said as he leant back, drink still in hand.

‘Might not go with the green tea.’

The voice was suddenly a lot closer; Chandler managed not to jump but he turned just in time to see Kent walk around the back of the furniture brandishing the half-empty packet. He maneuvered between Chandler’s legs and the coffee table as he extracted a biscuit and placed it between his teeth for safekeeping as he offered the packet. Chandler couldn’t have stopped the growing smile if he’d tried.

‘I can give it a try, can’t I?’ he said as he took one for himself. 

Kent chuckled. ‘All right, sir. If you insist.’

Chandler would have replied, but he didn’t have a chance before Kent had soaked half of his biscuit in his tea and taken a generous bite. There was no point talking to him until he could speak, after all, so Chandler settled for taking the inaugural sip of his tea. It was well-brewed, as it always was when Kent was on tea duty. None of the others seemed to be able to manage the jump from black to green tea.

Kent looked pensive as his chewing slowed. The words that followed his swallowing were laced with an infectious half-smile. ‘As long as it doesn’t come out on my performance review.’

Chandler had half a mind to respond—they were lingering too close to some sort of metaphorical line that he had yet to identify to make him entirely comfortable with that sort of offhand comment—but the only thing that seemed to be in his mind was the seeping warmth of amusement. At least, it was until the doorbell went. 

Kent, who had just moved to sit down, turned and frowned at the door as he replaced his mug on the table. ‘Odd. I’m not expecting anyone.’

‘I don’t suppose it could be someone from the station?’

‘Could be. Don’t know why they wouldn’t use my phone, they normally do,’ Kent said as he walked away. Chandler found he was experiencing some sort of disappointed resignation. Kent’s voice continued, muffled by walls and plaster. ‘I’d better check, anyway.’

Chandler hummed, more into his tea than anything else.

The sound of traffic augmented as Kent unlocked the door (chain and latch, again) and hauled it open. 

‘Emerson!’ The voice was female, and seemed exceedingly pleased to be arranging syllables into Kent’s name.

(Chandler didn’t quite understand why it made him bristle.)

‘What are you doing here, Mags?’ Kent said, surprised but equally glad.

The rest of their words were spoken at a lower pitch, for Chandler couldn’t put together the low sound in any sort of comprehensible order. He knew he shouldn’t want to, not really, and for once he couldn’t separate his instinct and the policeman’s. His attempt to ignore the entire situation didn’t work, either, as a deep-throated chuckle that definitely wasn’t Kent’s resounded in a moment of silence. Kent said something else—and Chandler definitely didn’t _, didn’t_ strain to hear it—before there was a clicking of shoes on the wood floor, and the door slammed behind them.

Chandler turned his head, resting it against the back of the sofa, as Kent reappeared in the sitting room with his coat in hand. They didn’t catch each other’s eye until Kent had one arm in a sleeve; Chandler didn’t even have to ask the question to get Kent’s answer.

‘It’s an old friend of mine, Maggie. We went to sixth form together, shared a flat for the first year here—’ He paused as he checked his pocket for his keys, a dark curl flopping over his forehead. ‘She’s up in Birmingham now, no idea why she’s down here all of a sudden but I suppose I’ll find out. You don’t mind, do you?’

Why would he? He was just borrowing the spare room. ‘Of course not. Go.’

‘Right.’

Kent’s voice was slightly disembodied, like he was somewhere other than standing behind Chandler’s shoulder. His footfall was too quick, as well, quicker than it should have been as it retreated in the opposite direction; Chandler didn’t know when he’d become so familiar with Kent’s mannerisms, his technicalities. He wasn’t to know about the supposed-tos in this house; he didn’t matter to it. He wasn’t supposed to be telling Kent to go out, either, and as his commanding officer it made something low in Chandler’s stomach coil. That sort of superiority was supposed to end at the station doors, wasn’t it? He’d sort of hoped it had. It’d been easy, when it had.

Chandler’s stomach coiled tighter as he frowned into his tea.

Kent’s friend appeared in the corner of his eye, sauntering through the entryway in her towering boots until she rested her entire body against the doorframe with arms crossed. A heavy fringe flopped over one eye as she propped her head against the wood; the dark strands standing out against both the white of the woodwork and the light denim of her jacket.

She caught his gaze during a leisurely glance around the room, and a slow smile spread across her scarlet lips. ‘Oh, _hello_.’

The peculiar look on her face as she looks between him and where Kent was doing god-knows-what in the kitchen might have been described as a cheeky grin (in fact, it wasn’t too many degrees of separation apart from Miles’ expression) but Chandler chose not to consider that. He had no idea what to do with that sort of information. None at all. No idea. Where had _she_ even got the idea?

Chandler, bewildered as he was, knew he too polite not to reply. ‘Hello.’

Kent reappeared from the kitchen at a speed Chandler had only seen in events of crime-related duress, and virtually barreled into her in his haste to get out of the flat.

Maggie’s smokey voice carried through despite Kent’s best efforts. ‘So _that’s_ why you told me to stay—’

The rest of her sentence was drowned out by the slamming of the front door.

*

Chandler finished the rest of his tea trying to not wonder why Kent hadn’t left any parting greeting.

(It wasn’t important. Was it?)

When he found himself with neither drink nor biscuit left, he shifted forward on the cushion and deposited the empty mug on the coffee table. He probably should have done something productive, since he had the benefit of both time and solitude, but for once it didn't really feel that advantageous. Instead Chandler sat, his chin propped in his hand, and stared at the ceramic and wood until the materials blurred together. The familiarity of not knowing what to do with himself sank in deeper the longer he sat there, in Kent's flat, listening to the occasional far-off sirens. 

He only blinked when absolutely necessary, and when the scene in front of him returned to crisp sharpness Chandler pushed himself to his feet. He might as well do something, after all, and the wrinkled packet of biscuits caught his eye. He snatched at it, catching the minority that were left between his fingers, and marched through to the kitchen. It was only when he was there, stood in front of an open cabinet, that he realised the usual elastic band was gone. Kent must have left it slipped on his wrist; he did that, sometimes. It was generally just a temporary storage place before he replaced it onto whatever foodstuff he'd stolen it from, though, and before he thought much about it Chandler pulled the band from around his own wrist and looped it around the packet.

The cabinet door shut with an audible clank behind him as Chandler turned away, his hand still raised from where he'd nudged the edge of the wood. The more he thought about it, the more he realised he didn't know—about Kent, that was. The constable wasn't intentionally obtuse; he couldn't be, not with Chandler in his spare room and a career in detection. It was just that Chandler had been content with what he'd known about Kent (or about all of the team, really) before he'd spent a week faced with everything he didn't know about him. The artwork on the walls, for instance—at least, Chandler thought he could term them as artwork—he'd never thought about it before. That Kent might have actually taken the time to get something framed. 

Chandler walked over to the dark wood and glass that hung over Kent's desk. He could have a little poke around, couldn't he? It wasn't snooping, not really. It would be if he went through his desk or his papers, but he wasn't, and anything that Kent had taken the trouble to attach to the wall was supposed to be looked at, wasn't it? 

He might as well have not bothered; he didn't recognise anything about the images before him. Chandler's area of expertise was more along the lines of those of an officer in Arts and Antiques (no wonder that cover story had been so believable) so the collision of colour and darkness and typography just ended up in visual cacophony.

The only words that made much sense to him were the locations: November 21, Shepherd’s Bush Empire; July 6, Electric Ballroom; October 12, London Astoria; March 3, Brixton Academy. There were more that Chandler didn’t recognize. Something called the Camden Crawl at the Dublin Castle featured strongly, over several years, although he couldn’t possibly see what was alluring about that sort of thing.

He turned away when his eyes adjusted and settled on his own reflection in the glass of one poster, the dark colouring a perfect background for the echo of an image. Chandler’s gaze fell on Kent’s laptop, deposited diagonally across one corner, and his fingers nudged it into alignment with the corners of the wood. For a brief moment he considered finding the charger and plugging it in, just because it would be helpful, but he decided against it. There was no need for him to go so far, after all. Although it didn’t feel like it _was_ that far at all.

Instead he turned around and redirected his attention to the bookcases that held all manner of spines aloft, titles and surnames sitting vertical. Chandler approached them, their silent watching, and peered at the combinations of letters. He hadn’t really spent any time contemplating what books, if any, Kent would have on his bookshelves, but since Chandler had noticed that the younger man had kept the book on the Ripper he’d been curious. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to see, but he certainly hadn’t expected to find Gibbon’s Decline and Fall lodged between Dan Brown and Neil Gaiman.

A volume of T. S. Eliot reclined next to the previous year’s bestseller. Chandler let his hand linger over the spine, and against his better judgment he hooked a finger over onto the pages and pulled it away from the rows of paper and binding. His eyes were immediately drawn to the dog-eared corners, one page folded down at both the top and bottom. Any self-respecting detective would have been tempted to open it—and Chandler did, as curious as he was intrigued. He was surprised to find that he recognised the poem: _The Love Song of Alfred J Prufrock_. Chandler had always liked Eliot. He’d even done _The Waste Land_ for A-level, years ago—liked it, but not understood it.

Maybe that was part of his problem.

He shut the hardback with a snap and pushed it back into place. He stepped back from the books, the records, the posters and the neglected-looking cactus—everything seemed too personal, too intimate all of a sudden. Kent had let him in, _left_ him in—why? He wouldn’t have done it. Chandler wouldn’t have been able to do it, just leave someone in his flat. He could possibly accept someone from the team (because if he couldn’t trust them then who would he trust?) but it wouldn’t have been something akin to Kent’s abrupt departure, a split second decision that didn’t even seem to faze him.

Did he not faze Kent?

He mustn’t, otherwise he wouldn’t have been in his flat in the first place.

Chandler turned around, hotly aware that the closest tub of Tiger Balm was in his coat pocket. He hadn’t realised he hadn’t needed it all evening; the lack of its presence fell on him with the same weight as the realisation had. Kent trusted him, really properly trusted him, and that shook him to the core.

His feet made the decision to retrieve the balm from its hiding place before he realised he’d even been considering it, before he’d even realised he’d thought of his coat pocket as a _hiding place_ (of all things.) But wasn’t that what he was doing, in an odd, all out in the open sort of way?

The only familiar sound within earshot was the scraping of metal against glass threads, the only familiar sensation was his fingertips against his temples, the only familiar sight was the woolen grain of his coat. It would have been easier if the rest of the place was more unfamiliar than it was.

But it wasn’t, and when Chandler turned around and slipped the pot into his trouser pocket, there were still two mugs on the coffee table.

He shook himself and took a deep, steadying breath. He picked up both mugs, one in each hand, and listened to Kent’s radio as he rinsed them in the sink. It was only when he was drying the second with Kent’s novelty tea towel that he realised it wasn’t odd anymore, to slip into the younger man’s routine. His habits, his home, his _life_. Chandler hadn’t thought he’d be able to slot into anyone’s life, never so easily and so painlessly. There had been a great deal of embarrassment to begin with, for the first twenty-four hours, but they’d found a pattern and it fit.

It _fit._

Chandler set the mugs on the draining board, hooked the tea towel on its cupboard knob, and expelled all the air from his lungs in a resigned sigh. He always got the wrong end of the stick, didn’t he?

The radio just kept on talking.

*

It had gone two in the morning by the time Chandler convinced himself his head was empty enough for him to try and get some sleep. He had retreated from the downstairs, where too much of Kent lay open before him for there to be peace of mind, and perched himself in the armchair in the corner of his temporary bedroom with a few cold case files he’d pinched from Miles’ desk. There were only so many autopsy reports and crime scene pictures that he could take before he decided on a break for a shower, but even then he’d caught sight of Kent’s half-open bedroom door and felt an urge to have a look in there, too, before he locked himself safely in the bathroom and wondered exactly how he’d got to this point.

He hadn’t found an answer by the time he padded back to his room, rolling the pot of Tiger Balm between his fingers and feeling that the crew neck on his sleep shirt was entirely too tight. The darkness helped, the anonymity of it, as he switched off the lamps and let the moonlight guide him around the room as he made his way towards the window. 

Chandler watched the swaying of the leaves illuminated by the yellow streetlamps on the road below, trying to forget how the park opposite could have easily been the twin of the one highlighted in the file at his feet, when there was a crack from downstairs and the front door opened. He’d have expected more ambient noise to creep in around the bodies as they entered, but all he could hear was barely concealed laughter—male and female.

The door slammed shut as the first identifiable words were spoken. ‘By the way—that’s that bloke, isn’t it?’ 

Chandler recognised the voice, even then. They’d shared all of two words of conversation but it was definitely her. He’d barely met her, of course, but even he could spot a hint of Brummie accent when it was there to be heard.  It was easier to go through all the markers that would align the voice with the individual than it was to think that she was talking about him.

‘What do you mean?’ Kent asked, voice wary but wavering with almost-forgotten glee.

Maggie kept pushing. ‘You know the one.’

‘Leave it, Mags,’ Kent said, his voice suddenly tired. 

She made a disbelieving sound in the back of her throat that was smothered by a laugh. ‘It _is_ him!’ 

‘Piss off.’

‘I knew it.’

‘Right, that’s it,’ Kent snapped, although Chandler could still identify a part of his voice that was humourous. ‘Nice seeing you. The vodka tastes the same as it did five years ago. Ta-ra!’

Steps clattered along the floor as Maggie let out a peal of laughter. Kent shushed her, and the steps fumbled before stopping when he succumbed into laughing along with her.

‘You love me, Em,’ Maggie said, hiccuping through the mirth.

‘Don’t call me Em.’

A half-smile slipped through Chandler’s calculated demeanor as he stepped back from the window and drew the curtains, shrouding himself in the soft blackness. Mansell had been on the end of a much more forceful version of that statement more than once, except then Kent had threatened to call him Finlay and quickly called a stop to that argument.

‘What does he call you?’ There was something about Maggie’s sloping voice that reminded Chandler of Riley when she wanted to wheedle information out of one of them.

The constable’s laughter came to a halting stop. ‘Kent. DC Kent.’

‘What, even in—?’

‘Shut up.’

‘Just teasing, Em,’ she said, crooning, and Chandler could just imagine her slipping an arm around Kent’s shoulders.     

There was a bit of a crash that overlapped the end of Maggie’s sentence, and the scuffle that followed made Chandler tense as he climbed under the crisp duvet.

‘Shh! _Quiet,_ ’ she hissed, half succumbing to an uncontrollable set of giggles. It didn’t take long before Kent joined in, his voice standing out as familiar in Chandler’s ear.

Kent spoke first, emerging out of mirth the best he could. ‘Do you want to stay here tonight?’

‘Nah, you’re all right,’ Maggie said. ‘I’m only a couple of stops down.’

Chandler expected a quick response, half sarcastic, as appeared to be Kent’s style when he was half full of drink, but none came. The time lapse would suggest that someone was speaking, though, as Maggie didn’t immediately continue. He rolled over onto his side, facing the closed door through the thick darkness. 

(As if that would help him hear.) 

(As if he _wanted_ to hear.) 

Maggie scoffed. ‘I’ve been on the Tube much more drunk than this and stayed standing up.’

‘Rather you than— _shit_!’ Another sharp thud reverberated through the house. ‘Why haven’t we got the lights on?’ 

‘No idea, Em,’ Maggie said with an overdone sigh. 

‘Turn them on, then.’

‘Where’s the switch?’

‘ _No idea_ , Mags.’

She laughed then, and although Chandler couldn’t detect or see anything worthwhile from where he lay, he might have been able to convince himself that the blackness that cradled the white wood of the door got a little bit lighter.

‘You’re a bit worse for wear.’

‘Tell me that in the morning.’ Kent’s voice was muffled but still distinctly his.

‘Can’t,’ she said, obviously pleased with herself for no apparent reason. ‘I’ll be on a train.’

‘Ha ha.’

‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you.’

Chandler agreed with her. Although he’d never found that it marred Kent’s face too much, either.

‘Neither did that last measure,’ Kent said.

The last few words morphed into a low groan, and Chandler wondered why his stomach lurched at the sound. He distracted himself by adjusting his pillow, shoving a hand underneath to find the cool sheets. Downstairs, a chair scraped across tile and it creaked slightly as someone sat down. It was Kent, Chandler reckoned, judging by the way the remaining steps clicked. The sound was definitely more akin to a stiletto than any shoe Kent would have been wearing.

Maggie ran the tap. ‘You can’t drink me under the table any more, Em.’ 

‘Evidently not.’

‘Poor Jack, though,’ she continued. The liquid noise muffled; she must have been filling a glass. ‘He couldn’t lie on the ground without holding on.’ 

Kent barked out a short laugh. ‘Shouldn’t have had those Jägerbombs.’

‘Lad bombs.’ The tap turned off.

‘What?’

‘They were lad bombs.’

‘Don’t mention them—’ Kent said, the end of his words bitten off. ‘ _God_ , just the name makes me feel sick.’

‘Best stick to cider next time then, Em.’ 

‘Sweet, fizzy booze? Don’t kid yourself.’

Chandler smiled to himself against the pillow. He could just imagine Kent’s face; it would have been similar to the one he shot Miles when he thought the older policeman wasn’t looking. The pleasure fell away from his face, though, when Kent must have got to his feet as chair legs rasped against tile again. There was a shuffle, a short clamoring of feet, and a sharp sound that sounded like someone catching onto nearby furniture to stay upright.

‘Oop, you’re looking a bit peaky,’ Maggie said, half-laughing and half-concerned.

‘I _feel_ peaky. Here’s to hoping I can manage to actually get into bed and don’t just end up on the floor.’

Chandler wondered if it was beyond his remit to get out of bed and help if there was a conspicuous thump after Maggie left. The conclusion was that it probably wasn’t—Kent was a member of his team, after all, and therefore partially his responsibility—but there was something intimate about it that made him balk. Surely Kent wouldn’t want him to mother him through a rough hangover. Chandler wouldn’t want anyone fussing over him, either, if he had a pounding headache and a proclivity for stumbling, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to make sure Kent was all right.

‘Go on, then. Keel over.’

Apparently Maggie didn’t subscribe to the same sort of idea. Chandler ignored the fact that he was holding his breath in the silence that followed her challenge. Whether he was doing it because he was nervous or because he wanted to her Kent’s response was irrelevant—the entire situation was bad enough as it was.

There was just enough time for Kent to swallow heavily before he said, ‘I’m not that far gone.’

‘Good.’ She paused, and Chandler forced himself to take a few deep breaths until she continued a moment later. ‘In that case, I’d best get back to the hotel. I’ve got a train to catch in four hours.’

Kent groaned. ‘ _God_ , time.’

‘Yes, it does pass. So will the headache.’

 ‘I hope yours doesn’t.’

‘Ta, muchly.’ 

‘Do keep in touch,’ Kent said, heavy on the sarcasm as there was another creak that spread through the otherwise silent night.

Maggie laughed, low and deep. ‘Course I will, Em. Now piss off to bed.’

There was something affectionate in her voice that made Chandler’s mouth turn down, even as he lay in the darkness facing no one other than his pillow. The traffic noise augmented as someone opened the door, a rush of white noise. Chandler turned onto his other side, battling the sheets away from his limbs before rearranging them, trying to erase the fact that he’d heard any of it. Except what could he have done? He was awake, and the place wasn’t exactly soundproof. Even after Kent shut the door—carefully, quietly—Chandler could place his footfall, his fidgeting around the lower floor. Even when he wasn’t trying. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to usher the welcome darkness closer.

Something in Chandler’s heart lurched when he heard Kent double-check that the door was locked.

*

The next morning was the first time Chandler walked into an empty kitchen. He didn’t think too much of it before he realised he missed spending the time between filling the kettle and hearing it boil talking to Kent. He couldn’t have even said what they talked about—anything and everything, he supposed, but probably things within reason—but the fact that Kent wasn’t sat at the table, or leant against the counter, or even sat next to the draining board left him disappointed. He hadn’t even realised he was looking for the familiar mop of bed-messed curls until he didn’t find it.

He went through the motions anyway: filling the kettle with a glance out to the garden, emptying it a bit when he noticed the water level had passed the maximum, filling it again when he emptied too much, forcing himself not to look at the measurements as he placed it on its stand and turned it on. Before long the muffled bubbling filled the silence and Chandler took his time in choosing that morning’s mugs, selecting two before lining all the others up with their handles facing outwards. There was a haphazard box of Earl Grey that neither of them had touched loitering behind the ceramic, and Chandler had to bite the inside of his cheek before he could shut the cupboard door on it.

Chandler stared at the mugs, the bubbling roaring louder in his ears, hands braced on the edge of the wooden counter.

It was easier when Kent was around. He didn’t know why, but it was.

The kettle clicked off the boil as Chandler’s hand dove into the inside of his jacket, fingers coiling around skin-warmed metal. The water stilled, hot but silent, as he rubbed his fingers in routine circles against his temples. He could hear his own breathing in the quiet; it was steady enough. He blinked, checked he wasn’t kidding himself, and reached for the nearest loaf of bread. He could manage toast, at the very least.

There was a thump from upstairs followed by a vague expletive. The panic Chandler had managed to battle down swelled for a moment as he dropped a slice into the appliance, but as footsteps padded about above his head, it receded.

It quelled. Not easily, but it did, slowly and haltingly.

Chandler turned back to the kettle and waited as it brought the water back to the boil. By the time Kent was plodding down the stairs, he was watching the clouds of milk swirl into beige in one mug and the increasing tint of colour in the other. He kept watching them as Kent’s steps leveled out, as they wandered through the sitting room, as they turned towards where he stood.

When the movement was obviously directed towards him, Chandler turned and allowed his gaze to fall on the approaching figure. Kent was more disheveled than he usually was in the morning, his hair more sleep-mussed on one side than the other, the entire image still sleepy and soft around the edges. Chandler was glad to see him, the same sort of feeling he’d used to imagine when his aunt had said someone was a sight for sore eyes. He was pleased by Kent’s mere presence, even when he was shuffling in with bare feet and pajamas while Chandler stood there in his three-piece suit.

‘Morning,’ he murmured, testing with a low volume as to not aggravate the possible headache. Kent didn’t flinch and Chandler took it as a good sign.

Chandler held one of the mugs out in front of him, a silent offering, and Kent moved towards him and took it with gentle hands. Chandler didn’t get any words, just a slow curved smile, and that was more than enough thanks for him. 

‘Good night out?’ he prompted as he raised his own mug to his lips.

Kent rubbed at his eyes with his free hand, blinking heavily. ‘No—yes. I don’t know.’

Chandler half-smiled. ‘Don’t remember?’

‘No, I remember,’ Kent said, his haste torn between an answer and a search through the cupboards. ‘I always remember. Never been that drunk.’

Chandler almost wished that was something he could say. Instead he shuffled over and opened the door that had been behind his head; he knew where Kent kept his biscuits better than he did now. The younger man followed Chandler’s movement, reaching for the shelves to grasp around for the half-eaten packet, and the proximity wasn’t essentially new but it was warmer, _more_. Chandler let himself stand close for a moment too long, but even then he didn’t do anything about it beside waiting for Kent to move away. Which he did, eventually, but even Chandler wondered about how long it took the average person to locate a packet of biscuits. 

‘Fancy one, sir?’

He almost spluttered in the face of Kent’s question, and settled for nodding in the direction of the toaster. ‘No, thank you. Toast’s half done.’

Kent nodded, more to the counter than to anyone in particular, and snapped the elastic band against the plastic before shoving it away. The sound drew Chandler’s gaze to the fine bones of the younger man’s wrist, and there it was, the green band that his beige one had replaced.

Chandler rerouted his gaze to the opposite window and watched a bird pecking at the crumbling mortar. ‘Did you find out why she was in London?’

‘Oh, Maggie?’ Kent slurped at the liquid and winced before blowing gently at the surface. ‘Works do, apparently. Not sure why she took that as a invitation to ring up all the old gang and attack a few bars.’ He laughed gently as he turned to lean against the counter, shrugging one shoulder. ‘But then again, that was always her style.’

Kent made no attempt to move away from where he stood, half-perched, against the cabinets when Chandler’s toast finished with a metallic ping. Chandler shifted around him, walking between the sink and Kent’s feet with his tea outstretched, and reached around the younger man’s elbow to reach the breadboard. For a few moments, the only sounds in the room beside their own mismatched breathing were the scrape of a buttered knife across bread and quiet gulps of tea.

Chandler took a crunching bite from one piece as he turned to mirror his companion’s stance, but found that the watch on Kent’s wrist had apparently become inexplicably interesting. Kent narrowed his eyes at it, mouth curling slightly at the side as the time sunk in. He groaned and made to leave his half-drunk tea on the draining board; Chandler almost didn’t stop him in time.

‘I’ll give you a lift in,’ he said, reaching an arm out in an impulsive moment. Chandler’s fingers slipped against the bare skin of Kent’s upper arm as he brushed past.

Kent looked over his shoulder as he came to a stop, eyes flickering between Chandler’s and a point somewhere to his right. ‘Sir, you don’t have to—’

‘I’d rather get there a bit later than I usually do than think about you trying to get there on that scooter.’

A well-worn resigned grin flickered across Kent’s mouth. ‘I’d appreciate it if you’d refer to it as a moped.’

‘I didn’t think the terms were interchangeable,’ Chandler mused, his words questioning but not pressing. 

‘They are when you work at a police station,’ Kent muttered, rubbing a hand over his brow before absentmindedly ruffling the front of his hair.

Chandler chuckled, and switched off the kettle he’d accidentally left keeping the water warm. ‘So, are you coming in my car or not?’

‘Give me twenty minutes.’

‘There’s no particular hurry,’ Chandler said to the back of the constable’s head.

Kent paused, turned his head slightly, and grinned. ‘Half an hour, then.’

Chandler watched him go with the shadow of a smile hidden behind his toast.

*

Kent had perked up by the time they were halfway to the station; if Chandler didn’t know otherwise, he’d just have thought the constable had had a particularly late night, or fallen asleep on the sofa by accident. There was a particularly large pillow crease thrown across his cheekbone that would support that theory but Chandler was trying to pointedly ignore that even when it caught his eye. It triggered a softening in his features that he felt was too telling, so he gripped the steering wheel tighter and stared at the bumper of the car ahead until the light turned green.

A quick glance to his left told him that Kent was happy enough doing something or other with his phone. The more Chandler tried to ignore it and focus on the road ahead the more he wondered whether or not he was talking to Maggie. It was oddly distracting. He’d never really thought about it before, beyond the vague familiarities that he knew about all of the team. And if he knew anything about psychology—and Chandler liked to think that he did, after all the years in interview rooms—he might even have thought he was feeling a tiny bit threatened. 

But he’d never been that good at self-diagnosis, had he?

‘That’s where I usually turn.’

‘What?’

His response was too quick, too forceful, response more to the sudden intrusion Kent’s voice than to what he was saying. But Kent was right—there was the road he had been planning to turn down, well behind them now. 

Kent shifted to put his phone back in his jacket pocket. ‘Never mind.’

Chandler didn’t dare say anything else until they arrived, faced with that half-smile of Kent’s.

*

The station was quiet when they walked in. So quiet, in fact, that the duty officer didn’t even look up from his newspaper to acknowledge their arrival. Chandler was glad for the nonchalance; he didn’t need any more prodding than the amount he’d inevitably get from his team. He even considered popping down to see Ed before the shift, just to make sure he had actually gone home the previous night, but Kent made an offhand comment that elicited a smile and he missed the chance to excuse himself. The staircase was much too far behind them for a smooth exit, the door to their offices too close.

Kent leant on the door, using all his weight to shift the wood and glass, and Chandler filed in behind him. The door shut itself with a rattling slam.

Mansell looked up from the open file in his hands, caught sight of Kent’s face, and smirked. ‘You and the boss have a rough time last night?’

Chandler stopped in his tracks, but Kent kept walking past Mansell towards his desk. He didn’t even bat an eyelid.

Mansell turned and eyed Chandler for a moment. ‘He looks all right. God, mate, I’d have thought you’d drink him under the table.’

The first thing that popped into Chandler’s head was that Mansell couldn’t have possibly been paying attention at any instance of revelry with the team, but then he remembered that most of the time Mansell had imbibed a couple more than a few by the time Kent got going. Not that he got going that much. He had to admit that he was glad Kent just went a bit silly rather than argumentative, or violent, or mouthy; it would bother Chandler if he did. There was more chance of him ending up in A&E that way and God knows he’d seen him in a hospital bed one more time than he’d ever wanted to. 

Kent looked like he had half a mind to say something—to tell Mansell off, probably, judging by the quick glance that flickered to Chandler’s gaze—but Riley wandered up from behind them all, wielding a rolled-up newspaper and brandishing it at the back of Mansell’s head.

‘Lay off him, Mansell. You’ve looked worse. At least he’s not come in with pen all over his face again.’ Riley paused, grinning, before turning to where Chandler still stood. ‘And you’ve spooked the boss.’

Chandler flinched as Miles appeared through the doors, holding a mug and a pile of case files. ‘It’s not that hard to do.’

They all smirked then, even Kent from where he sat with his mouth hidden behind his hand, and a flush crept up the back of Chandler’s neck.

At least he could say that no one on his team wasted time. He’d barely been in two minutes and they were taking the piss out of him. Everything was normal, then. Nothing had changed, there was nothing abnormal about the situation, despite the fact he’d spent at least an hour lying awake in the dry darkness outlining all the things he’d identified as different, _strange_ , there-but-not, flickering just out of sight. But if he was the only one seeing them, then that was normal too, and he could handle that much the same way as he had been doing, couldn’t he?

‘Let’s have a look at these, then,’ Miles said brightly, shifting the arm laden with files as he brushed past Chandler on his way to the office.

Chandler cleared his throat and made to follow his sergeant. ‘Right. Okay.’

He focused on getting his coat off without getting the sleeves stuck around his wrists as he walked into the office, and took his time in draping it over the back of the chair.

Kent had settled in his seat, looking from his screen to the file in front of him and jotting down the occasional note. Or he might have been testing a pen, scribbling on a corner to get the ink flowing—Chandler couldn’t tell, not from that distance and not when Miles was stood a foot away trying to maneuver the files onto the desk without spilling his drink. Even so, when Kent looked up and pulled the keyboard towards him, he managed to catch Chandler’s eye and offer him a small, quiet smile. 

Chandler snapped back into his own office when Miles gave up and just dropped the files onto a clear corner. Chandler took over and picked them up, careful not to lose any loose cuttings from the bottoms when he tapped them against the desk, and settled in his seat as a grumbling Miles did the same. A brief glance back outwards might have even told Chandler that Kent was chuckling.

He made a mental note to pop out to the shops at lunchtime for Kent’s hobnobs just as Miles began a blow-by-blow rundown of the file in his hands.


	3. Chapter 3

Mealtimes quickly became a thing that happened between them. They even had a routine that ended up with Kent up to his elbows in sudsy water and Chandler standing at his side with an arsenal of tea towels. _Today in Parliament_ was just a low mutter in the edge of consciousness, an interloper in the room, but it was as much of an undercurrent as the sloshing was in the occasional silences. Chandler listened half-heartedly, recognizing a handful of names and arguments, but spent more time observing Kent out of the corner of his eye, wondering about the amount of times Kent’s elbow had nudged his. 

It had been a full-on day, with the team temporarily seconded to Organized Crime for a large operation that turned up nothing. Chandler had spent the evening crouched in a van parked in Spitalfields with Miles, listening to him complain about his bad back while trying to make sense out of grainy CCTV. The other officer, not from their team, kept to himself; none of them really got on that well, not after the would-be Krays. Kent and Mansell were loitering on a nearby corner, trying to look as innocuous as possible, while Riley was keeping an eye on the restaurant in question from inside.

Kent had texted Chandler every once in a while, ignoring the radio except when spoken to. It suited his image, a young man with a wicked smile and nimble fingers, and Chandler was glad for it. The last few times Kent had been on the receiving end of a radio Chandler had had to shout his name across the tenuous connection, panic low and prickled with fear. Messages like _Not a bad evening_ and _Takeaway?_ kept his fingers from itching. Except for the one time he’d forgotten to set his mobile to vibrate and Miles had caught a glance of the screen; Chandler had just shoved it in his pocket and gone uncomfortably hot. 

They had gone for takeaway, after, when the subject hadn’t even bothered to show up for the suspected meeting and the DCI got fed up of authorizing overtime. They’d wandered down to a nearby (and relatively new) Thai place Chandler had heard of, with kitchens you could see from the dining room. Kent had looked overwhelmingly glad that he didn’t have to lug any boxes with him on his moped, but Chandler had the unfortunate luck of introducing his car to more traffic than a normal Tuesday night would call for. By the time he’d staggered through the door Kent was leaning on the back of the sofa, sleeves pushed up to his elbows, watching the tail end of the headlines. Plates and cutlery sat quietly in their peripheral vision.

Chandler had wanted to apologize, but Kent was grinning at him and took the food from him in a flash. And that was that. He hadn’t even had a chance to take off his coat before a full plate was in his hands.

But there he was, half an hour later, drying the plates Kent passed him so he was either forgiven or performing some sort of penance. Either way suited Chandler well enough. They’d endured enough strained silences in the station in their years of working together to sully the atmosphere with another.

A sound rang out from the adjoining room, and both Kent and Chandler turned to look in its direction at the same time. It took Chandler a moment to place it, because although it definitely wasn’t his mobile, it didn’t sound like Kent’s either. But it was definitely coming from the direction of where Kent habitually left his phone on charge.

‘You wouldn’t mind…?’ Kent asked, trailing off with a vague jerk of his head and a waft of a wet hand.

‘Of course not,’ Chandler said, quickly wiping both hands before draping the towel over a cabinet handle and shuffling behind Kent.

He spilled out into the sitting room with a slight breath of relief; the kitchen was large enough on first glance, but the free space seemed much smaller once two grown men were trying to work in it simultaneously. Breakfast was all right—more often than not one of them was at the table, or on a corner of the counter in Kent’s case—but standing side-by-side at the sink didn’t lend itself to nimble movement. Even so, Chandler strode across the wooden floor and came to a stop in front of Kent’s desk.

The table wasn’t much better in the realm of space. The only reason that Chandler could find Kent’s phone was because they both used the same type and he recognized the tail-end of the charger; the device itself was neatly covered by both a newspaper and a pile of official-looking letters. It was usually neater, Chandler noticed, but he pulled the phone free and tried to ignore it. 

Chandler glanced at the screen as he walked back to Kent’s side. ‘Text message. Mark Hadley?’

‘2, 5, 9, 3.’            

‘What?’ he replied, frowning, as he came to a stop. Kent just stared at where his hand disappeared beneath the water as he felt around for a fork, or something simliar.

‘The passcode,’ Kent said when faced with Chandler’s silence, voice emphasizing his assumption that it would be obvious. ‘2, 5, 9, 3.’

Chandler only just managed to pull himself out of his confused expression as he pressed the touch-screen buttons in the prescribed order. Even as he did it, he felt like it was just another thing about Kent that he shouldn’t have known. Kent had offered it up to him—he hadn’t even asked, and he didn’t think he was the sort of man who’d get frustrated about the time it took someone to dry their hands and relieve him of the technology—and there he went again, asking Chandler to check his texts for him. The older man was almost scared to look. It was the sort of thing Chandler would have thought you’d have a conversation about, before it actually happened.

(Evidently not.) 

‘What’s Mark on about this time, then?’

Kent’s voice was too calm by half, but Chandler looked from the side of his head to the phone and tried to understand.

‘It’s—it’s a dog,’ Chandler said, staccato and with his brow furrowing in confusion. ‘A picture of a dog.’

Kent’s face lit up. ‘Let me see.’

‘It’s name is Martha, apparently,’ he continued, inclining the screen so Kent could see while keeping it a safe distance from the full sink.

‘Oh, so it’s a her, then?’ Kent asked as he peered at the image, a familiar smile playing at the edges of his mouth.

Chandler nodded but felt detached, out of sorts, when he couldn’t place where the smile came from. He didn’t know where the detachment came from either, because hadn’t he felt that for years and never been that bothered by it? He’d thought he had accepted it. Yet there it was, welling up as Kent’s eyes warmed to a dog made of pixels and Chandler didn’t know why.

‘You don’t seem surprised that he’s texted you a picture of a dog for no apparent reason.’ 

Kent turned back to the watery mess in the sink and reached for the washing up liquid. ‘Jess has been going on about rescuing a greyhound for ages,’ he started, pausing as he struggles to open the cap with his thumb. ‘And Mark missed having a dog running around, I think. London’s not the place though, is it?’ 

‘Not for one of that size.’

Martha’s brindled legs flopped off the edge of the armchair, the front two white paws crossed at an angle. Her muzzle hung over one arm, rump propped up on the other. The furniture looked several sizes too small. Chandler couldn’t possibly imagine a creature like that enjoying the East End, even with Victoria Park.

Kent grinned. ‘She looks comfortable enough.’ 

‘I suppose she does,’ Chandler said, voice almost melancholy, as he cocked his head slightly at the image.

Kent glanced up at him, eyes searching, when he passed over a dripping mug. Either Chandler was worse at concealing his wandering mind than he thought or Kent had spontaneously developed an uncanny ability to read minds, because he answered the question floating at the front of Chandler’s consciousness without needing to have it voiced. 

‘She was a waitress at a restaurant he was inspecting. Jess, that is,’ he started, fishing around for another cup as he spoke. ‘The place ended up shutting down, so that was a good start.’ Kent laughed, and Chandler smiled at the sound. ‘She slipped him her number and gave him food poisoning, actually—that was a bad week—but the second date went much more smoothly.’

He paused, and handed over a glass as he gazed out the window. ‘No one vomited that time, anyway.’ 

Chandler scoffed, eyes soft. ‘You’re really selling this as the romance of the century. I’m concerned about Martha’s welfare, now.’

‘I think we can trust them not to contaminate kibble.’

‘It wouldn’t be the oddest thing we’ve seen,’ Chandler warned, an eyebrow raised in comic exaggeration. 

Kent met his eye as he handed over a serving spoon. ‘True.’ He shrugged into a chuckle. ‘I think they ended up giving each other chickenpox, too, but that’s a bonding experience—I suppose. That and classic Who.’

Chandler paused, caught between the fear his six-year-old self had in face of the Daleks and the creeping dread that his thirty-seven year old self had with the introduction of a highly contagious infection.

‘I have changed the sheets since,’ Kent said, noticing Chandler’s strained expression and countering it with a smile. ‘It _was_ over a year ago.’

Although he didn’t feel that inclined to laugh, Kent’s easy acceptance of his pathology tempted out a half-hearted smile.

‘You were saying about chickenpox…?’ Chandler prompted as he double-checked the inside of the mugs beside his elbow.

‘And then they were inseparable.’ Kent shrugged. ‘They just weren’t, then they were. Easy as that.’ 

Chandler was just trying to pinpoint the origin of the slight wistful hint to Kent’s tone when the mobile in his hands vibrated, alerting them both to its failing battery life.

‘I’ll just—’

‘Yeah.’

He pushed past him, arm accidentally brushing the constable’s shoulder blades, and retreated to the relative safety of the sitting room. though exactly what suddenly felt so stifling in the kitchen was still a mystery.

Kent’s voice floated through the open doorway. ‘They’ll be married before long.’           

‘How do you know?’ Chandler’s hand fumbled as he tried to reattach the charger, but of course that had nothing to do with what anyone was actually saying.

‘He bought a ring.’

Chandler placed the plugged-in phone alongside the line of the plugged-in laptop, nudging it into perfect alignment with the aluminum body and the pile of folded papers. He moved to realign it again as he caught the edge of the table, but curled his fingers into a fist and resisted. 

‘Really?’ he asked, tone a bit tighter than normal, and walked back to where he’d left his tea towel.

‘Yeah. He had to come back for it the day after he left,’ Kent said, an easy smile appearing at the memory. ‘Forgot he’d left it in my sock drawer.’

Chandler wrinkled his nose. ‘Yours?’

Kent turned and grinned at him, one hip leaning against the counter as the sink drained. ‘She wasn’t about to be looking in there, was she?’

He chuckled despite himself. ‘No, I suppose not.’ 

(Chandler didn’t even let himself think about how that statement relaxed him, physically _relaxed_ him, took away some sort of unconscious extended flinch against the vague possibility of Kent having relationships with people who didn’t have warrant cards. He might later on, when he was in bed and it was dark and the mind inevitably wandered, but he wouldn’t be able to look Kent in the eye in the morning.

He might not even be able to do that anyway.)

*

The landline rang the following evening.

It was almost surprising to hear the traditionally jarring sound of a phone instead of an electronic concoction of notes or that accursed _marimba_. Kent was the only person that Chandler knew, besides Miles, with a landline. He’d mentioned it on one of the early days, but Kent had just shrugged and said it’d come with the telly. Which was a perfectly reasonable explanation, really.

There was no reasonable explanation, though, for why Chandler propped the book he’d been reading face-down on the arm of the sofa and leaned so he could peer at the tiny screen and call out the sequence of numbers to Kent, who as sat fiddling with something on the Internet at his desk. He didn’t even think about it. He just did it. He didn’t even experience the flush of retrospective embarrassment and regret that was so familiar.

Kent stopped typing and turned to meet Chandler’s inquiring gaze. He repeated back half of the digits before trailing off into a groan and jumped his feet, hurrying to the insistent phone. To save him time, Chandler plucked the handset from where it sat on the end table and held it somewhere to the left of his head as he returned to the paragraph the ringtone had interrupted. Kent’s fingers grazed Chandler’s as he walked past, sending a shiver through the older man’s lower back. Kent didn’t notice, though, and he answered the call by pressing it to his ear in one fluid motion as he kept striding towards the kitchen.

‘Hello, Mum.' 

Chandler fought off a growing smile. He considered going upstairs and giving Kent space, but as he turned to catch his eye and nonverbally excuse himself Kent looked straight back at him. The constable wrinkled his nose and rolled his eyes with a brief glance to the handset at his ear, effectively including him. Chandler reckoned he’d know if Kent wanted him out, or that he’d go himself if privacy was that important, so he settled back into where he’d sat, shooting glances over his shoulder as Kent pottered about the kitchen.

‘Yeah, he went a few weeks ago,’ Kent said, holding the phone against his ear with a shoulder as he began returning the completed washing-up to the correct cabinets. ‘Nope. I’ve got enough for the rest of the lease. It’s only a couple more months.’

Words blurred in front of Chandler’s eyes as he let his mind follow Kent’s lead. He hadn’t thought about Kent having to find another place to live. He hadn’t looked at any flats—or at least, Chandler didn’t think he had. He hadn’t been following him around so how could he really know? Maybe that was what he was doing before his mother called. Chandler resisted the temptation catch a glimpse of what was left on the laptop screen and turned to look at the young man instead.

It was odd, seeing him stretch to the top shelf and in socks. Chandler couldn’t really imagine him anywhere else—even though he hadn’t expected Kent’s flat to be anything like the one he was currently sat in. He was starting to see why Kent was loathe to leave.

‘Yeah,’ Kent said, switching sides with the handset. ‘Yeah, the extra room’s not bad.’

Chandler turned away from where Kent stood silhouetted against the late afternoon light. There was something in Kent’s voice that he didn’t like, a lilt that wasn’t usually there, one that he’d heard once before on a late night in Ed’s house.

Kent gave a short laugh. ‘It’s a nice thought but I haven’t got the room at the moment.' 

His voice was brighter. Glad. Relieved? All of them were possibilities. Chandler tried to make himself stop there, to stop with the question and leave the answer somewhere untouched, and read the page in front of him.

‘I’ve got someone staying already.’

‘No, Mum. _Mum._ It’s not like that.’ It sounded as if Kent put a plate down a bit too heavily, but his exasperation drowned even that out. ‘If it was, I’d have the extra bedroom, wouldn’t I?’

‘Yes. It’s the DI. His flat was in the way of a burst water pipe.’

Chandler made a mental note to call his landlord. Last he heard they’d just started putting up new drywall and he’d spent an hour trying to fight the impulse to go round and make sure they covered all his furniture properly.

‘Doesn’t like hotels.’

Kent’s voice sounded like a shrug, and a half-hearted one at that. 

‘Yes, that’s perfectly normal,’ he continued with growing indignation. ’ _You_ don’t like hotels.’

‘Are you telling me you’ve forgotten about New Quay?’

He closed the cabinet door with just a bit too much force, and left his hand hanging on the handle as he spoke.

‘A bed and breakfast _is_ a hotel, Mum.’

The exasperated sigh was back, although there was an edge of amusement there, affection.

‘Suit yourself. Ask me again in a week or two, anyway.’

Something twinged in Chandler’s chest, a repetition of a pang he’d felt before but successfully ignored. He turned a page with force, gnawing at the inside of his cheek, and read the first line twice before he realised he’d gone a page too far. 

The creak of the wooden floorboards from behind him drowned out any further attempt to take in any information, and a glance towards the front window revealed Kent shuffling through some papers with one hand, his lower lip worried between his teeth.

‘How’s Dad?’ Kent asked as he pulled the cap from a pen between his teeth and scribbled something on a sticky note.

There was a pause filled with a slight rustling before Kent hummed. ‘Tell him not to invite any more badgers into the garden.’

Chandler did stop reading at that, raising his eyes to the top of the unlit fireplace. Badgers? _Badgers_? He’d heard some funny things on the job but he was sure badgers rarely came up. The relevancy was painfully irrelevant, though, so he shook himself and forced his eyes back to the text in front of him.

‘No, I’ve not forgotten.’ Kent laughed, and the sound came from much closer behind Chandler’s head than he expected. ‘I’m not about to, am I?’

He leant over and shoved an envelope and card on the end table, lodged underneath the phone’s base, and kept walking. Chandler had noticed before that Kent had a tendency to walk around when he was on the phone; if he was attached by a cord, then he would fidget instead, doodling with one hand or spinning a pen between his fingers. Chandler watched him go out of the corner of his eye, and when he moved completely out of his line of sight his gaze fell on Kent’s handwriting. _Post by Monday, get stamps._

Chandler didn’t know why he ended up half-smiling at the still-unread page in front of him.

‘All right, Mum. Bye. See you… eventually.’

Kent came back into the room with a heavy sigh, the handset held limply in his fingers before he pressed it back into the base station. He looked as if he might have just walked straight back to where he’d sat before, his eyes cast down, but Chandler sought out his gaze. 

‘Sorry about that,’ Kent said, letting a finger trace the edge of the handset. He shrugged, only meeting Chandler’s eye for a second but a second was long enough for the slight embarrassment to register. ‘My parents are the only legitimate callers I get on this line.’ 

Chandler smiled up at him, trying to offer something of what Kent had offered to him before he turned back to his book.

He tried a light question, one that he thought was probably safe to ask. ‘What was that about badgers?’

‘I happened upon one in the garden last time I was there,’ Kent said with a twinge of a smile. ‘Turned out my father had been encouraging it with cat food.’

‘That’s…’

Chandler searched for the right word but Kent beat him to it as he dropped onto the cushion next to him.

‘Idiotic? Yeah. If you knew him you’d know that was a bit of a pattern.’

Kent visibly relaxed as he arranged himself on the sofa, one elbow propped on the arm. Chandler shifted slightly to give him more room, though not enough for him to notice. He wasn’t even sure he noticed his own movement, not when his eyes slid from the text in front of him to the shape of Kent’s profile as he searched for the remote, the slight frown that deepened as he found nothing under the cushion, the curl at the nape of his neck that he could never quite get to lie right— 

‘Anything on?’

Chandler shrugged, although he’d read that day’s listings in the paper too many times in his attempt to avoid paperwork, and let Kent settle on a programme. He didn’t even complain when Kent left Grand Designs on and tucked his legs beneath him.

After all, why would he? 

*

It was a good thing that Chandler was a relatively light sleeper, otherwise he would have felt much more guilty about the volume of his phone’s ringtone. Miles, on the other hand, sounded more than a little annoyed about being awake at four in the morning.

‘There’s been another callout on our patch,’ the older policeman snapped as soon as Chandler got the mobile to his ear.

‘Where this time?’ Chandler yawned but dragged himself into a sitting position all the same.

‘A flat on Vallance Road.’ Miles grunted and swore as a muffled thump travelled across the line. He recovered after a rasp of _shush_ ing, presumably from Judy. ‘Some sort of domestic incident.’

Chandler rubbed one of his eyes as they adjusted to the lack of light. ‘Right.’

‘No reported death but an ambulance’s been called. Looking like a GBH with intent, boss.’

Chandler sighed as he threw the duvet back and forced himself out of bed. He half pulled the curtains open to glance at the word outside—he couldn’t make out much. ‘And the victim?’

‘She’s not conscious but her neighbour’s giving a statement to uniform as we speak,’ Miles said as a door slammed on his end. 

‘Okay.’

‘The cordon’ll point you in the right direction when you get there.’

Chandler was sure that it would, flapping luminescent white and blue in the early morning air. The uniformed police cars would be another decent tip-off, with their neon contrast blazing through dim light as they sat in the street decidedly not minding their own business. He turned away from the window with a vague sound of agreement—he was generally an eloquent enough man, though not as often when he had been woken by his sergeant in the middle of the night—and began a slow, careful walk through the shadowed room towards the rest of the upstairs floor.

‘Mansell and Riley are already on their way,’ Miles continued, and a car clicked open in the background. ‘I’ve not rung Kent, though. I trust you can get him up?’

Chandler hummed his assent as he padded towards his door, mostly because it was quiet but also a little bit because he wasn’t sure what words would do to his voice when faced with that particular question.

Miles grunted, and an engine rumbled to life. ‘I’ll see you both there.’

A click echoed in Chandler’s eye and he was left standing in his doorway, staring at the blank white surface of Kent’s bedroom door with his disconnected phone still held aloft. In any other situation, he would have just phoned him to deliver the unfortunate news—and it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d have to spell out a conversation to Kent while the constable was still half-riddled with sleep—but Chandler couldn’t very well do that from the room opposite, could he? The obvious plan of action was to just knock on his door and hope they could carry on a conversation through a layer of wood, but what if Kent proved to be a heavy sleeper? Was he expected to go in and wake him? They hadn’t addressed that, not in their twelve days of flatsharing. Chandler gave Kent a wide berth when it came to sleeping arrangements, and Kent had done the same to him.

But the job was what it was, and an attack was an attack, and it was Chandler’s responsibility to make sure his team was present when called upon. What must be done, and all that.

Chandler swallowed the growing unease that was clawing its way up his chest and took a step onto the landing. When nothing happened beside the distant screeching of an urban fox, he quickened his pace before his mind could get ahead of him again. Before he new it, the knuckles of the hand that still clasped his phone were poised above Kent’s closed bedroom door. Chandler faltered for a moment, took a shallow breath, and let his fingers fall against the wood.

‘Kent?’ 

‘Yes?’

The reply was remarkably quick and bright for the time that it was, but Chandler was too flooded with relief to really question it. 

His voice felt less tentative as he answered. ‘Callout.’

Kent made a sound that was uncannily similar to Miles’s all-too-common grumbling. ‘Right.’

Chandler half-smiled at the painted wood, glad to be relieved of his duty as a flatmate, until the shuffling from the opposite side reminded him that trying to wake Kent was the least of that morning’s problems. Miles was bound to lay into him if they arrived too much later than everyone else, so he turned to return to his temporary lodgings in search of more suitable clothes, his shadow blocked out by the scant light that spilled from below the door.

He didn’t stop to question exactly when the light had gone on in Kent’s bedroom. 

*

Chandler wouldn’t have heard the click of the kettle if he hadn’t been lying awake for two and a half hours. 

He had always found it difficult to switch off, to leave the half of himself who was a policeman at the station after hours. They’d done as much as they could for the woman, a one Claire Cooper, in the hours they had. She’d been able to give them a statement at the hospital, naming her fiancé as her attacker. None of his usual haunts concealed him, though, and after circulating his description and alerting uniform they could only make sure they had a watertight case for prosecution. Hours of alternative evidence, photos of the damaged flat and Claire’s injuries, and witness statements hadn’t been broken by a reported sighting or a tip-off.

Even then, tucked under the duvet and staring at the blank ceiling through the soft darkness, Chandler was waiting for his phone to ring. Maybe that was why he heard the gentle click at all. It certainly wasn’t anything he’d noticed before.

Chandler clambered out of bed. If Kent was up, he might as well be. Neither of them could sleep, apparently, and he’d seen the look on Kent’s face that evening when they’d all gone home without answers. He had looked as if he would have stayed behind to man the phones if Chandler wouldn’t have known immediately if he hadn’t followed orders to get some sleep. 

Not that either of them had been successful at _that_ , either. 

Kent’s door was shut, but light escaped from the inch of space at the base. It wasn’t enough to illuminate the landing, let alone the stairs, but Chandler had been glancing around a darkened room long enough to be able to feel his way downstairs, one hand on the banister and each step tentative, without too much anxiety. The lower floor was dimly lit by the light spilling from the kitchen and Chandler followed its lead. Kent stood with his back to the open doorway, head bowed, with the kettle at his elbow on the cusp of boiling.

Chandler wandered in behind him, running a hand through the back of his blond hair as the other reached for the case file Kent had left next to the toaster.

‘You, too?’ he asked.

He hadn’t expected the reaction his gentle prompt received. Kent had just picked up the kettle and was halfway to pouring it onto a single tea bag in his favoured mug when he jumped half out of his skin, sending a spurt of scalding water over his other hand.

‘Shit!’ he exclaimed, voice rough and wavering as he turned and pushed Chandler out of the way, dashing to the sink. ‘Sorry— _shit_ —’ He turned on the tap with a flick of his wrist, and held his hand under the stream of cold water, eyes cast down to stare at the stainless steel. ‘Fuck.’

Chandler stood to one side, mouth slack with surprise, as he tried to gather the appropriate words. The problem was that he didn’t know what he was trying to be appropriate about; he’d surprised people before, came upon them without making enough noise to announce his arrival, but Kent was skittish and jittery even as he stood there. The line of his back was bowed, slightly hunched in on himself, as he soaked his hand; it reminded Chandler of when Kent had stood at his desk in crutches, when he’d been terrified and not said anything to any of them. When he was trying to be all right. 

‘Kent…?’ Chandler began, depositing the unopened file on the countertop as he inched closer to where Kent stood.

The younger man’s eyes were shut, brow half-creased and mouth a tight line. ‘It’s—it’s fine.’

His voice betrayed the words. They sounded hollow. 

Chandler lowered his voice to a gentle tone, one he used with witnesses, and murmured, ‘I’m sorry.’ 

‘It isn’t your fault,’ Kent said, opening his eyes but not seeing.

‘I should have announced myself.’

‘Sir, it’s really not your fault,’ Kent said as his voice hardened and he dragged a hand towel over the scalded skin. ‘It’s my own bloody problem.’

The more words he said, the more bitter he sounded. Chandler just looked on as Kent chucked the towel in the vague direction of the draining board and turned back to the mug, pouring water into the ceramic with a bitten cheek. 

‘What do you mean?’ Chandler asked, reaching to touch Kent’s shoulder but only getting a shallow flinch in response. ‘Kent, what do you mean?’

He didn’t get an answer immediately, but as Kent watched the liquid darken over time his face slid from closed to open and Chandler knew he would get one if he played his cards right. He couldn’t push—he’d seen Miles try that, once, and it was probably the only time Kent had told him off. So he just waited, hovering near Kent’s side as he leant against the counter, bare feet chilled against the tile. Kent busied his hands with the tea, pressing the teabag with a spoon before removing it and adding a generous splash of milk. They both watched the opaque clouds drift, enveloping themselves as the spoon clinked against the sides, although they were careful not to look at one another. 

Kent sighed heavily, shoulders sagging, as he pushed past Chandler and made his way to sit at the table. ‘I can’t sleep, sometimes.’

Chandler noticed he was careful to sit where he couldn’t see his reflection in the back door.

The older man moved slowly, carefully, and when Kent finally looked at him Chandler took it as an invitation to join him in whatever conversation they were about to have. Whatever it was. Chandler still wasn’t exactly sure but Kent’s face made his throat constrict as he sat down next to him.

Kent stared at his hands, fingers rubbing at the reddened skin that must have been stinging. Chandler wanted to reach out and cover them with his own—as if that could actually _improve_ the situation—but he kept them locked between his knees as he tried words instead.

‘The cases do that.’

Kent huffed quietly, and let his hands fall apart. ‘One case in particular, in fact.’ 

‘Oh,’ Chandler said, embarrassed at how long it had taken for that to click into place in his mind. He sought out Kent’s lowered gaze, trying to keep his expression soft in the face of the growing anxiety in his chest. ‘Nightmares?’

Kent shook his head sadly, as if that would have been an infinitely easier explanation. ‘Not exactly. I… wake up, and I don’t know where I am.’ He paused, curling the fingers of one hand around the steaming mug. ‘I get a bit spooked.’

Chandler’s mouth went terribly dry. ‘I’m sorry—’

‘Please, don’t,’ Kent said, immediately interrupting.

He shut his mouth, unsure whether or not to push the matter. His apology at the time had been inadequate, Chandler knew, and he had spent more time than he’d like to admit making sure he _listened_ to Kent, not just talked at him. Because of course Kent hadn’t said anything at the time. He’d kept his mouth shut and he’d been scared. Chandler’s stomach felt as if it had dropped straight through him to the floor. Kent, _scared._ It frightened Chandler, now.

‘Cases like this…’ Kent trailed off and waved a hand in the direction of the abandoned file. ‘I can empathize.’

Chandler could see why. Not the domestic aspect of it, not the knowledge that someone who you loved and was supposed to love you was somebody else entirely, not the knowing but the not knowing. Not knowing where the attacker had gone. If he’d be found. If it might happen again. He might still feel that, actually, although they’d taken everyone they possibly could down they still didn’t know who exactly it was who had taken a blade to Kent—it couldn’t have been the Krays themselves—and it was impossible to eradicate their network entirely.

Kent stared into the tea bracketed by his hands. Chandler felt an inexplicable need to pull him closer, to stop him from feeling so alone, to keep him warm, protected. Though he’d failed him that already, hadn’t he?

Silence smoothed the awkwardness that could have stretched between them, and Kent began to speak unprompted.

‘It’s been worse, since I’ve had the flat to myself. I keep thinking—’ He cut himself off, eyes squeezed shut as fingers sought out the warmth of his drink. ‘Never mind. You don’t want to know.’ 

‘I do,’ Chandler said, leaning forward and laying his hands on the table. 

'What?’

Kent looked at him, at his face then his hands then back at his face again.

Chandler shifted further forward in his seat, trying to will himself to be clear. ‘Want to know.’

The younger man looked dubious, and drew he warm cup closer into the crook of the arm he was resting on his side of the tabletop.

'Really,’ Chandler said, forcing a smile onto the side of his mouth while he made a concerted effort not to reach out and brush his fingers over the fine bones of Kent’s wrist.

Kent took a deep breath but his lungs and throat failed him, leaving him with only half the air he wanted. Another rattling breath later and he was talking, close to an edge Chandler couldn’t quite see.

(He wanted to, though. He was pretty sure he wanted to.) 

‘I keep thinking I can hear them.’ Kent swallowed. ‘Their… steps. I keep getting that feeling, the one where the bottom falls out of your stomach and you know—you just _know_ —you’re fucked.’ He took another insufficient breath and steeled himself. ‘But it’s just that moment. What’s left is chemical. Nothing to do with my state of mind.’

Chandler thought that last statement was contradictory in itself, but kept quiet because Kent was taking another breath to speak and if he interrupted now they’d never manage to finish the conversation.

‘I go to bed and manage to get to sleep but something must wake me up because the next minute I’m very much awake and I don’t know what to do with myself.’ He groaned. ‘I don’t know which is worse: being on my own or having someone else around.’

Chandler didn’t know whether to feel guilty or not.

‘It’s too easy to forget someone else is there,’ he continued, gesturing at nothing in particular. ‘I’ll hear something move and forget I’m supposed to know who did it. Someone’s steps that I should recognize. But—it’s just that moment. The shot of adrenaline. Then I can rationalize it and I’m all right.’

Kent flexed the fingers that had threaded through the handle, pressing the pads into the stinging heat of the ceramic. He exhaled through his nose, eyes closed, before letting them open—staring at nothing—and continued.

‘When I’m alone… well, that’s harder, isn’t it? It’s in my head. I can rationalize all I want but the idea still came from inside my head, so it never really goes away.’ Kent barked out an unsound laugh. ‘Just like this situation can’t seem to bugger off.’ He paused, words darkening his brow, and glanced at Chandler’s confusion. ‘Not us sitting in the kitchen. My sleeping—I thought it’d worked itself out ages ago. This is a bit of a reversal of fortunes.’

‘I suppose that’s why it’s been worse, recently.’ He raised the mug to his lips and blew gently on the surface of the water. ‘It’s not a massive place but it feels much more empty, now. Well, it did.’ Kent took a sip, swallowed, and murmured, ‘Still does, sometimes.’

Chandler chose his words carefully. ‘Kent, when was the last time you slept through the night?’

The younger man had to think, which was worrying enough, but it was the length of time he took that bothered Chandler the most. 

‘When I went out with Maggie and got more drunk than I had any right to.’

He sighed, like that was his last refuge.

‘Kent—’ Chandler started, pulling his chair that little bit closer to Kent’s.

‘But even then, it’s the same amount of time,’ Kent said hurriedly, biting the words out just in time, as he stared into his drink. Chandler’s silence forced him to meet his inquiring gaze. ‘Look, I’m not _not_ sleeping. I can sleep. It’s fine. I just wake up and can’t go back for a while.’

‘A while?’ Chandler prompted. He had a feeling there was more under the brisk words than Kent wanted him to know.

‘Sometimes not at all.’ Kent shrugged. ‘But more than often it just takes a couple of hours to wear off. The… adrenaline, I don’t know.’

He had no answers to that, no more than the ones that Kent had already provided for himself. Even so, Chandler didn’t like it; he was sure it showed on his face, even in silence. He’d never been much good at keeping his emotions hidden outside of a police station.

‘Don’t look at me like that.’ Kent scowled at him, fingers returning to knead the back of his scalded hand. ‘I’m functioning. I’m fine. Just not at this particular moment. I’ll be all right in the morning.’

Chandler knew his expression clearly told Kent that he didn’t quite believe him. He didn’t quite know why, because if he was honest with himself then everything Kent was saying made complete sense. He _was_ fine, as far as Chandler could tell—as far as all his interaction with him over the time they’d shared the flat would suggest. If he thought about it, the signs were there: always up first in the morning, exaggerated startle responses, very little silence. But they weren’t anything he would have worried about if he hadn’t stumbled upon it at its climax. Kent was his normal self for all intents and purposes, smiling and chatty and a good detective.

For some reason, that didn’t make the tension in Chandler’s chest fall away. It might have even have made it worse.

‘You’re not on your own,’ Chandler murmured, trying to make Kent look at him properly. ‘I’m here.’

Kent smiled for a moment, and spoke to his tea. ‘I suppose you are.’ 

Chandler wasn’t entirely convinced but the clench on his lungs loosened. 

A shrill car alarm shot through the still night air from somewhere nearby; it wasn’t an unusual occurrence for the area but Kent still jumped, his fingers tightening around his mug. He hissed something under his breath once he realised what he’d done, the sting from the back of his hand now mirrored on his palms, and folded his hands in his lap. Kent chanced a glance at Chandler’s face, but it was Chandler who didn’t like what he found.

‘Emerson…’ he murmured, and this time the flicker of Kent’s eyes to his wasn’t just a momentary contact.

It shifted something in Chandler’s mind, the bit of him that had managed to keep everything in their neat, respective boxes, and everything flooded at once. He reached out a hand, occupying the empty space between them and not really reaching for any part in particular but he wanted _, needed_ to touch Kent just to prove that he was there, that they weren’t on an empty street in East London instead of sat in their quiet kitchen, a section of light cocooned in darkness.

Kent moved to meet the grip of his hand, sliding the back of his neck into Chandler’s palm, so who could possibly say who made the first move? It didn’t really matter, did it? All that mattered was that all of a sudden Chandler was brushing a kiss to Kent’s mouth and getting one in return. He didn’t even know why—or maybe he did, not really, but Kent’s hands were warm on his shoulders and that was about as far as his brain could get. There were a hundred reasons why they shouldn’t be doing what they were doing, the most pressing of which had sat tangibly between them moments before, but Kent had let a heated palm wander onto the side of Chandler’s neck and wrapped the other around his shoulders as he heaved himself into Chandler’s lap.

Chandler drew him a little closer, because Kent was still shaking, and raised his other hand to grip the younger man’s side. He almost didn’t notice the muffled sounds that escaped Kent’s mouth, the gentle shadows of whimpers that barely made it out alive, with the feeling of the thumping heartbeat, the lungs expanding with each breath, the press of ribs against his fingers.

He gasped when Kent licked a corner of his mouth and in the brief opening Kent took his chance, deepening the angle and sighing against Chandler’s cheek. Kent kissed him like he didn’t quite know how to stop, hands in his bed-ruffled hair and thighs bracketing Chandler’s. It would be so easy, _so_ easy, to just slip one hand under the dark hem of his t-shirt, splay his fingers over the taut expanse of Kent’s stomach, to grip his hip and adjust— 

Oh, _God_. 

Kent broke away only to press his mouth to Chandler’s skin, chin and jaw and throat. Chandler rearranged his hands, pressing the heel of one into the bone of Kent’s shoulder, pushing firmly but not wanting to shove.

‘We—’ he started, but the effort of disentangling himself from Kent’s limbs proved more difficult than he’d expected. ‘Kent—we can’t—’

There was a sudden thump as their center of gravity shifted and Kent’s back collided with the side of the table. He hissed as what was left of his tea splashed over the rim of the mug, and Chandler jumped to his feet.

‘We can’t,’ he repeated, words almost hushed, as he stepped back and around the furniture. Trying to find a way out—one that didn’t exist, not really. Couldn’t exist.

Kent looked at him, just _looked_ at him with reddened mouth and wide eyes. He seemed confused, like he’d been plunged underwater, and couldn’t quite make any sense out of what was being said. It made something in Chandler’s chest crack. 

Chandler let out a tattered sigh as he scraped a hand over his face and hair, trying to brush away the ghost of Kent’s insistent touch. ‘We really, _really_ can’t.’

Kent looked for a moment longer, swallowed, and gathered his wits to speak. ‘But—’

‘I think—’ Chandler started, making sure he drowned out Kent’s argument. He was too likely to agree with him. ‘I think it would be best if I went.’

He punctuated his words with a vague gesture out into the darkness of the house, the lifeless part, and thankfully his legs managed to carry him in the direction his mind wanted him to go.

Kent tried again, his footfalls following him out. ‘I’m—’

‘Please, don’t—’ Chandler hated himself for echoing Kent’s own words, taking one more thing that wasn’t really his. He wanted to sigh, just deflate with resignation, but he had to straighten his spine and maintain his forward motion. ‘I’ll see you in the morning, Kent.’

Chandler pretended he didn’t hear the small, disheartened _yes, sir_ that followed him upstairs.


	4. Chapter 4

Chandler left the next morning without seeing Kent at all.

He had stopped outside his room just before heading to the station, the floorboards creaking under his step, and knocked on the door with tentative knuckles.

‘Kent?’

The light wasn’t on, and Chandler got no answer.

*

He made it to mid-morning before anyone really questioned why Kent hadn’t come in. It was a good thing, too, as the kiss had left Chandler unraveled and he wasn’t sure how well he’d put himself back together. Everyone was more concerned with the reported sighting of Ian Fowler in Bow; in fact Miles had rung Chandler to inform him of the development while the detective inspector was just walking into the station. They’d been so preoccupied with the impending operation that neither of them noticed they were on the phone to each other while standing in the same room until Mansell pointed it out. Thankfully the arrest went much more smoothly than Chandler’s arrival, and Fowler was booked into a holding cell well before lunchtime.

Riley informed Ms Cooper just before she was discharged from the hospital, Mansell amused the rest of the officers with promises of drinks all round after the shift, and Chandler buried himself in the inevitable paperwork. It was easiest—no one would pester him about the whereabouts of their absent detective constable if he filled in all their forms on his own.

Miles, however, wasn’t so easily dissuaded; when had he ever been? Chandler tried to ignore the steps that approached his open office door, the creak of the wooden frame as it supported a leaning body, the stifling noise of a silence about to be broken. He tried to focus on the ink, the scratch of ballpoint across copy paper, the letters his fingers formed without him having to think about it. 

‘What’s the matter with Kent?’

The letter beneath Chandler’s pen got an accidental tail as Chandler flinched. The moment, barely perceptible, was amplified in its recording.

‘I don’t know, he didn’t say,’ Chandler said with a brief glance towards Miles. ‘Probably a stomach bug.’

Miles shifted his weight onto his other leg, keeping his arms folded against his chest. ‘You don’t say.’

Chandler hummed as he arbitrarily leafed through the pile of papers to his right. ‘It’s the time of year for that sort of thing.’

‘Stomach bugs don’t have a time of year.’

‘Don’t they?’

Chandler answered too quietly, too easily flippant. He was DI Joseph Chandler, and never in his life had he been flippant about illness. He expected Miles to make some sort of disbelieving noise, or tell him to get a grip and stop internalizing everything but there was nothing. Just an extended pause where Chandler stared at the paper and it stared back.

He took his first proper breath in ages when the framework creaked again, protesting the increase in applied pressure and its subsequent removal, and Chandler looked up to find an empty doorway. He was relieved despite himself. Maybe Miles had learnt to mind his own business occasionally. Chandler took another deep breath, reached for the pot of Tiger Balm at his elbow and rolled the glass and metal in his palm as he turned back to another in the long line of forms. 

He shouldn’t have expected to be so lucky.

Miles reappeared not even five minutes later, walking carefully as to not spill whatever liquid it was he was carrying in the overfilled cup. Chandler only recognized it as green tea when Miles placed it in front of him before settling into one of the chairs. 

‘Okay, spill,’ he said with narrowed eyes. ‘And I'm not talking about the tea.’

Chandler stared at him. Miles could really be too shrewd for his own good, sometimes. Then again, he’d been heading up teams of detectives for decades. If he didn’t pick up on things he might have to be thinking about retirement. Chandler forced himself to breathe normally and reached out for the mug. He pulled a face once the liquid was close enough to smell—stewed. 

‘Oi!’ exclaimed Miles when he noticed Chandler’s curled lip. ‘I had to read the back of the packet to get that right.’

‘Not quite,’ Chandler muttered, and he busied both his hands and his mind aligning the cup with the rest of the accoutrements on his desk.

Miles watched, but didn’t stop him. ‘What have you done?’

‘Why does it have to be something I’ve done?’

Chandler’s tone was terse, more irritated than he thought he actually was. But he wasn’t really angry with Miles, was he? And it was plainly obvious to the both of them that _something_ had gone on. _Something_.

Miles sat forward. ‘Okay then. What’s he done?’

Chandler cringed. Kent had done nothing. Nothing that wasn’t already Chandler’s fault.

He didn’t need to say anything for Miles to understand. ‘I can see from the look on your face it’s not something he’s done.’

A groan escaped him as he ran a hand across his face, the heel of his palm knocking the front of his hair out of place. It should have annoyed him but it just felt insignificant in face of what he was about to do. Miles got up to shut the door; his expression alone would have deterred the rest of the team from interrupting but the extra layer of sound protection was necessary. Chandler still wasn’t any closer to speech when Miles sat back down and watched him carefully.

‘I have all day.’

Chandler grunted. ‘End of shift, at most.’

‘Nope. All day.’ Miles shook his head with a gruff half-laugh. ‘You’re not blundering off home in this state.’

‘Oh, _God_ ,’ Chandler started, cutting himself off preemptively. ‘I, um…’ he started, but trailed off. Words wouldn’t come. ‘I… well…’

‘Would you prefer to write it down?’

‘Miles!” Chandler snapped, wrapping one hand around the edge of his desk until his knuckles stood out white. ‘I… I kissed him. I _kissed_ him, all right?’

‘Ah.’

Chandler couldn’t look at him. ‘Yes.’

‘Well.’ 

‘What?’ Chandler couldn’t comprehend why Miles was so calm. He was a mess about it, really; he’d only managed the morning because he’d been distracted. It had really hit him, in his office looking at Kent’s empty desk. Yet Miles just sat there, expression pensive and decidedly _not_ flipping his lid. 

‘I’ve been wondering when that would happen.’ 

Chandler frowned, more at Miles’ current ability to string together a sentence than anything else, but he didn’t really pay attention to the words because what the sergeant was saying didn’t make much sense.

‘I took advantage of him in a vulnerable moment.’ 

It was Miles’ turn to frown. ‘No, you didn’t.’

‘I think I’d know, Miles.’

(Of course he would. He’d been there, he’d leant over and kissed Kent when he was half frightened and half exhausted. When he was still recovering from an overstrong startle response. When he wasn’t in the right state of mind to tell him no.)

‘Did you ever think that might have been what he needed?’

Chandler snapped out from the inside of his own mind and stared at Miles. The words just didn’t fit, he couldn’t have said what Chandler thought he’d said. But there weren’t that many other options—he couldn’t have misheard all the words Miles had chosen.  What sort of question was that? Miles didn’t know the situation—or did he? He knew Kent, he knew what it must have been. His job was making educated guesses; he could guess what might make Kent vulnerable.

He shut his eyes, shaking his head. ‘What?’

‘Fine, then. Bad choice of words,’ Miles said, slight annoyance in the edge of his voice. ‘Did you ever think that might have been what he wanted?’

‘ _Why_?’

Miles made a noise that said he thought it was all painfully obvious. ‘Because he went a bit barmy for you the minute you walked onto our patch.’

Chandler didn’t know what to say.

‘You must be blind. You never noticed?’ When he received no answer, Miles barked out a short laugh. ‘You never thought twice about something he said, or did?’

He tried to answer, but found that a pause was easier. When Chandler did find his voice, it was croaky. ‘I never believed it.’

‘You’re a pillock,’ Miles said simply, shaking his head to and fro. ‘That lad’s the most genuine person I’ve come across.’

Chandler knew what he meant, if he thought about it. Kent wasn’t stone-faced, or hardened, or even moderately phlegmatic. Chandler could always tell when he wanted praise, or backup, or a bit of friendly commiseration. But he hadn’t seen anything that would suggest Kent was interested in him romantically. But what would those sorts of signs have been? Chandler wasn’t sure if he’d have noticed any of them unless they involved Kent just _telling_ him. He scrubbed his hands over his face again. How much had he missed?

‘So, what’s the problem?’ Miles seemed as if he was asking an honest question. ‘You’re not sporting another black eye so I assume he reciprocated. Though I can’t see why he wouldn’t. All the evidence says that he’d be the happiest man alive if you asked him to dinner.’

‘I’m a… particular man,’ Chandler said, slowly and carefully. He couldn’t quite believe he was considering this at all, let alone talking it through with his sergeant.

‘You’ve said that before,’ Miles admitted, though not without a degree of humour. ‘And you can say it again.’

‘I’d be hell to live with. I’d take over his life.’

‘You’ve already done both of those things.’

A shot of panic coursed through Chandler’s veins. ‘No, I—’

‘You have,’ Miles interrupted, clearly fighting to keep his tone one that would prevent his boss from getting the wrong idea. ‘You’ve quite comfortably shared his flat for near on two weeks. You look better for it, by the way.’

Chandler squirmed in his seat. He couldn’t really deny it, could he? He had, he _had_ , and he’d even spared a thought for missing that comfortable existence when he’d thought he’d just ruined it.

‘And you can’t possibly think this has just occurred to him, can you? Tell me, _sir_ ,’ Miles began, pausing for sarcastic effect. ‘Have you ever seen Kent with anyone else, male or female?’

Chandler sat in the ensuing awkward silence and tried to avoid Miles’ gaze.

‘At any of the official dos? At any of our lot’s get-togethers? At Mansell’s weddings? At birthdays? At lunch, after shifts, during drinks?’

The voice that came out was quieter than Chandler expected. ‘No.’

‘No. Precisely.’ Miles sat back with a self-satisfied air. ‘And he knows we’d welcome anyone he liked, providing they weren’t obviously a tosser.’

Chandler couldn’t quite pull himself out of the place he’d left himself, intensely aware of shame from all fronts.

Miles pressed forward, filling the silence. ‘He spends most of his waking hours in your company. Here, at the station, with the team. He doesn’t have to, he’s got mates, I’ve even met some of them. He chooses to. Not that I think it’s good for him, but he’s a grown lad and he can do what he wants.’

At any other time, Chandler wouldn’t have believed him. But, at there in the face of Miles’ exasperated expression, he missed being able to see Kent’s face through the interior windows. Mansell had been out often enough for various vague reasons, as Miles and Riley were sometimes when their kids fell ill, but Kent… he and Kent were the constants. They often found themselves to be the last ones in a deserted station once night had fallen. Each time Kent had been out had been the result of Chandler’s own mistakes.

‘And I don’t know why you think he’d be shocked by your oddities, either,’ Miles continued, ignoring Chandler’s glances behind him. ‘Kent knows you. He’s seen you at your worst, like we all have. He’s been on the receiving end of your worst. God knows why he’s still interested after that. If you were a bird—that’s a terrifying image—I’d have gone straight off you.’ 

The corner of Chandler’s mouth twitched into a momentary smile; Miles was right. He often was, after all. But Chandler didn’t understand any better than he did, and if Miles had known about Kent’s feelings for so long and still couldn’t fathom them, how could he ever comprehend them?

Miles made a show of glancing around the room. ‘Plus, judging by the fact there’s no bag in here and you don’t look like you’ve spent the night in your car, he hasn’t chucked you out of his flat. Does that really sound like someone you’ve coerced into accepting your admittedly ill-timed advances?’

Chandler shook his head but sighed. ‘Unless you factor in the bit about my being his superior officer.’

‘Bollocks!’ Miles exclaimed. ‘I’d have thought you’d have known he’s not that sort of bloke.’

‘You still think he’s being an idiot, though.’

Miles gave him a wry smile. ‘My gran told me I was being an idiot when I married Judy. She thought we wouldn’t last, because Judy’s that much younger than me and I was working vice—of all things—and we’d only been together a year. Looking back, it was a bit idiotic. But look how that worked out.’ He paused, thinking. ‘And, if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, I think you’re being an idiot, too.’ 

Chandler smiled, and a small bit of laughter fought its way up from his chest. Half-bitter, it was, but resigned to the truth. ‘I’m a mess.’

Miles snorted. ‘And you think he’s not?’

‘I can’t help him.’ 

‘He helps you, though,’ Miles countered. ‘I’m not blind. I can see the signs when they’re there. You haven’t been as bad, lately, have you? Apart from this morning.’ He waited until Chandler nodded reluctantly. ‘Plus, who said you have to be able to help him? I’m sure he doesn’t want you to fix him. I think he’d just like you around.’

There was a part of Chandler’s mind that wanted to say that’s what they had, they’d had each other around, what was different about that—but he knew what Miles meant. What he’d insinuated. He’d been there, Kent had him around about not in the way he really wanted. If he did want _that_. Chandler still wasn’t entirely convinced—and Miles could tell.

‘Is it so wrong to care?’

Chandler’s immediate answer would usually have been yes, when the person in question was one of his male subordinate officers in an organization not exactly famed for its inclusiveness. It would have been yes because it made problems for all of them, for him and for Kent and for every single case they’d ever taken to court. But, sat there with the arguments Miles had made for him and the memory of Kent’s catching breath against his skin, the brightness of his eyes when he was amused and the easy familiarity, Chandler thought it might not be so wrong after all.

Even so, he rested his head against his hands, elbows propped on the desk. ‘What if people found out?’

‘True,’ Miles said, chuckling. ‘I’ve already found out and all I had to do was scowl.’ 

‘Miles.’

‘You know we don’t mind. It’d be nice to see you both happy.’ 

Chandler made a show of reorganizing his files. ‘Yes, well, I wasn’t really talking about the team, was I?’ 

‘What? The higher-ups? How are you planning on them finding out?’

‘I can’t condemn him to a life of sneaking around,’ Chandler murmured, talking more to the sticky labels on the edge of manila than Miles. 

‘Then don’t.’ The sergeant shrugged. ‘Discretion goes a long way with coppers.’ 

‘What?’ Chandler asked. He wasn’t sure a room full of policeman could stop themselves from deducing anything that was there to deduce.

‘If you don’t provoke questions, no one will ask for answers,’ Miles clarified. ‘We’ve got enough bloody questions already.’

They fell into a more comfortable silence. It wasn’t entirely comfortable, obviously—it wasn’t every day that Chandler discussed the possibility of a romantic relationship with a member of his own team with another member of his team—but for once he didn’t feel as if he’d had a bucket of water chucked over his head. Things—well, things might even have begun to make a little bit of sense. Because Miles didn’t lie to him, not about this, and he’d tried to help before so it wasn’t entirely out of character. And there was something about Chandler’s memory of Kent’s hands, of his grip, of his voice that he’d previously thought were his own augmentations, his own additions to make it more palatable. But no, apparently not, apparently that _was_ Kent, a Kent that wanted him. 

_Emerson_.

Miles made to stand up, and wafted his hand in front of Chandler’s face. ‘Go, then. Before you change your mind.’

‘I never said I’d made up my mind,’ he replied, indignant, but stood up anyway. 

‘Your face did.’ Miles chuckled as Chandler gathered his things. ‘Go on, get on with it. We need Kent here as much as you do.’

‘I don’t _need_ him here—’ Chandler protested, already aware that he’d chosen the wrong words but he couldn’t quite think of any alternatives.

Miles laughed, and shook his head at him. ‘Course you do. Who found you the chalk?’

*

The yellow door stared back at Chandler from where he stood on the pavement.

He didn’t know why he’d listened to Miles. 

He really, _really_ didn’t.

It was easy in theory, wasn’t it? Standing outside Kent’s door was a bit more difficult that that. His key weighed heavily in Chandler’s palm, the pinnacle of his reluctance. It felt wrong just to barge straight in when Kent wouldn’t be expecting him. They hadn’t exactly made a habit of popping home for lunch. Chandler pocketed the metal and knocked instead; he was on Kent’s territory now. He’d only ever been a temporary visitor, after all.

His heart thudded against bone and cartilage as there was a shuffling from the other side of the door, a heavy footfall that Chandler had only ever associated with Kent when he was upset. Which he probably was, really—upset with him. Because he’d upset the status quo. They’d been perfectly fine, hadn’t they, looking from a distance and getting on. Tongues and hands and mouths tended to get in the way of getting on.

Chandler swallowed as he heard the twist of the lock.

For the split second after the door opened, they looked at each other without seeing. Not really. Chandler recovered first and felt something in his chest constrict. Kent stood there in a rumpled state, plain top and pajama pants, with an expression that suggested—despite his attire—he hadn’t had much sleep at all.

Kent looked taken aback. ‘Sir?’

‘Yes?’

(It was as good a way to open as any.)

‘You’ve got a key.’ Kent’s hand fell from where he’d left it hooked around the edge of the door.

‘Um, yes.’ 

‘I only answered because I thought it couldn’t be you, if you were knocking.’

Chandler’s heart sunk. ‘I can go.’

‘What?’

‘If you don’t want me here.’ He gestured with a thumb thrown over his shoulder. ‘I can go.’

Kent seemed to take a moment to deliberate; Chandler couldn’t believe that he couldn’t hear the hammering of his heart.

‘Yes and no.’

‘Yes _and_ no?’ Chandler repeated, bewilderment seeping over his features.

Kent sighed and stepped aside. ‘Just come in.’

Chandler did as he was told. Kent shut the door behind them and brushed past, back into the sitting room, without giving Chandler much of a second glance. But he didn’t seem actively cold—maybe just a little, _little_ bit if he squinted—so Chandler took that as a good sign. A decent one, at least. He hadn’t been sent straight off, so Miles must have been right. He followed Kent’s lead and padded through to the sitting room. He didn’t presume to take his coat off, though, not in a place that suddenly seemed so very much Kent’s in both name and possession. 

There were bits of him strewn around as well. He hadn't noticed it happening, but he was there, wasn't he? Had been, at least. Kent didn't seem to notice, or if he did he didn't say anything about it. Maybe he wanted it. Had wanted it, wasn't that what Miles has said? Might still do. Hope swelled in Chandler's chest as Kent walked through the sitting room without so much as a glance at their mingled possessions. If it was him, he'd have chucked his things long ago. But Kent hadn't, even after—

‘We brought Fowler in this morning.’

‘Did you?’

Chander nodded. ‘It’s just the paperwork now.’

Kent didn’t answer. Chandler didn’t expect him to. It was plain that that wasn’t the reason he’d come; it was just an easy place to start. Not that it started anything, really, it was just somewhere. Somewhere safe. Some bit of conversation that Chandler could begin without veering into anything more personal. Although that was what he’d come to do, wasn’t it? 

God, he was shit at this sort of thing.

‘Tea?’

‘Mmhm.’

Chandler didn’t really want any, not really, but it was the accepted answer and it flowed out without him having to think about it. He followed Kent into the kitchen without thinking as well, his shoes clicking with each step while the younger man walked almost silently. They assumed the same positions they always had in those past two weeks, although the time when it had felt comfortable seemed to have well and truly passed. 

(He missed it terribly.) 

‘I, um,’ Chandler started. He considered removing his coat; he’d suddenly gone very hot. ‘I wanted to apologize.’ 

Kent looked at him from where he stood with a hand in the box of teabags. Just looked, and only for a long moment, before turning back to the work surface. Chandler had an uncontrollable moment when he thought Kent would ask what he was apologizing for—he didn’t really want to have to answer that question, not really, not when it felt so blatantly obvious, as if their shades were still balancing on that chair—but he didn’t.

‘I appreciate the sentiment,’ Kent said, keeping his eyes forward as he put the tea back in the cupboard. ‘But I’d rather you didn’t.’

‘What?’

‘You don’t need to, sir.’

The honourific made Chandler flinch, an addition that felt terribly out of place with them stood in Kent’s little sunny kitchen. He didn’t feel like Kent’s superior officer, stood there with his words failing him. It wasn’t even anything to do with the fact that he wanted to forget completely the fact that he was, in fact, Kent’s DI. It was just that he didn’t really feel cut out to be a DI when they stood there, at opposite side of the room, trying to find the appropriate words. Chandler reached out and clasped the nearest chair, sitting down without being asked for once, and rubbed a hand across his face. Kent flicked the kettle on, ever patient in the face of possibility. 

‘Miles…’ 

Chandler trailed off. He really didn’t know where he was going with this. He did, actually, but there was something very different about actually trying to string together some syllables and vocalize his thoughts rather than just thinking them. 

‘What about Skip?’ Kent prompted, clearly interested but not really pushing. 

‘Miles is under the impression that…’ Chandler stumbled through the sentence; words just wouldn’t come out. ‘…that you wouldn’t mind.’

‘And those were his words exactly, were they?’ Kent asked, his voice teasing though tentative.

Chandler felt awkward, sat at the kitchen table in his coat while Kent fiddled with the kettle in his pajamas—as if what he was trying to say wasn’t cringe-making enough.

‘Look,’ Kent said, pushing the mugs further onto the counter as he turned around.

Chandler didn’t move his head to meet his companion’s gaze. The sigh and the hitch in Kent’s voice were rejection enough; he’d known that it had been inevitable, though, really, so why had his stomach sunk? He’d barely had time to consider where that particular feeling left him when a warm hand cupped his cheek and maneuvered his head towards where Kent stood bent towards him. Every sensory neuron in Chandler’s body seemed to be centered around where Kent’s hand was in contact with his skin, firm in its message although gentle in its execution. The next thing Chandler knew was that Kent was kissing him, leaning close and _kissing_ him, and his eyes slipped closed. That couldn’t be happening; he hadn’t come for that. He’d come to mumble some apologies and clear out his things and distance himself before maybe slowly—gently—coming back, not to let Kent kiss him whenever he wanted to. He definitely hadn’t come to kiss him back. Not like that.

Kent half-smiled when he pulled away, letting his hand slide across Chandler’s shoulder. ‘No, I wouldn’t mind.’

He sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the roll of the boil and Kent’s breathing. He should probably have said something sooner than he did, he knew, but words were hard enough to come across as it were and _Kent had kissed him_.

If that didn’t baffle someone into silence, Chandler didn’t know what would.

A cup of tea appeared on the table in front of him with a gentle clink, and Kent took the seat next to him. Chandler was shocked to find uncertainty on his face.

‘Should I be apologizing, sir?’

‘What?’ It was the first word that had come easily out of Chandler’s mouth all day. ‘No. _No_ , please don’t.’ He reached out to touch Kent’s wrist where he’d laid it on the table, but decided against it and rerouted his hand to the tea instead. ‘You haven’t misconstrued my meaning.’

Kent relaxed, a bit, and he did crook an amused eyebrow at Chandler’s hand.

He wrapped his fingers around his own mug. ‘What did Sarge say, exactly?’ 

‘That you wouldn’t have minded if I’d done that three years ago.’

‘He’s not wrong.’

Chandler looked up from the fingerprint on the glass he’d been studying. ‘Should I have done?

‘I don’t know,’ Kent said, shrugging one shoulder. ‘Would it have helped?’ 

No. Probably not. It wouldn’t have been a good time—though Chandler always wondered when it was a good time, with him. With any of them. There didn’t even seem to be the possibility for police officers to be in the right place at the right time. So could he just… do it? Not care and just… _care_? It was a leap of faith, a jump off a cliff, that most people seemed capable of taking. They weren’t that different from most people, were they?

He sighed, and braced a hand against the glass. The metal edging bit into his palm. ‘It feels like it’s all come out of nowhere.’

‘Has it?’ Kent asked, concerned, as he lowered his mug.

‘No,’ Chandler admitted, casting his glance downwards as he moved the hand closer to Kent’s across the surface. ‘Probably not.’

Kent looked down at their hands, but still curled his fingers around the ones that Chandler offered. ‘You said we couldn’t.’

‘I never said we wouldn’t.’ Chandler’s smile was small until Kent outdid him and he had to catch up.

He would have been perfectly happy sitting there until he’d finished his tea, with Kent’s soft stroking at the dips between his fingers, but Chandler’s phone vibrated in his coat pocket and their hands slid apart.

‘I’d better—’

‘Yeah—’

Chandler didn’t check his phone—he knew what it’d be, it was always going to be Miles who would end up pestering him—but he stood up nevertheless. Kent followed, leaving his half-drunk mug behind as he followed Chandler as far as the open doorway to the sitting room.

‘Do you want me to come back in?’ he asked, leaning against the doorframe. 

‘No, it’s fine. You’re owed a day off anyway,’ Chandler said with a brief smile. ‘Plus, it’s been dead quiet all day. Nothing but witness statements and tax forms.’ 

‘I’ll stay well out of the way, then.’ Kent chuckled, but his hands were trying to find pockets that weren’t there. He ended up running a hand through his hair instead. ‘The day’s not over, though. Something could still come up.’

‘Tell you what. Take the rest of today off, but I’ll phone you if anything’s called in.’ 

If any grin could be called ear-to-ear, Kent’s could be. ‘Yes, sir.’

The detective inspector shot him a softly deprecating look over his shoulder. He didn’t mind, not really, because Kent was obviously teasing, but now that he let himself think about it just the addition of Kent’s voice to the situation nudged him into a direction that definitely wasn’t out the front door and back to his car. The entirely opposite direction, in fact, and Chandler hadn’t even made it into the warmth of the red entryway before he had slowed to a stop.

Chandler turned and the grin had gone from Kent’s face. Not entirely—bits of it lingered behind, tugging at the corners of his mouth and eyes, but its presence was eclipsed by the new look gracing his features. Open, for once, barely hiding; slack, intense, present but somewhere else. A thought in reality, a subconscious idea written through skin. It made a shiver run up Chandler’s spine and drew him back, back towards the dark eyes and dark hair and twitching fingers.

He didn’t stop where he’d stopped before.

Kent took a step closer and met him halfway, head tilted to accept Chandler’s advance without crashing into each other. He whimpered into their kiss, relief and desperation rolled into one, and Chandler licked the sound right out of his mouth. He couldn’t quite decide what he wanted; everything or nothing, just a nudge of his nose or the back of his throat, but Kent’s hands had slipped beneath his coat and the implication was clear.

‘Do you want—’ Chandler started when they pulled away for breath.

Kent interrupted with both his hand and voice. ‘Yes.’

‘You’ve not heard the question.’

He smiled as he slipped a finger down the back of Chandler’s shirt collar. ‘Whatever it is, the answer’s yes.’

Chandler shuddered, both at the contact and the promise, and Kent’s grin widened. His coat ended up flung across the back of the sofa, the red lining a flash against brown in the corner of his eye, and his jacket soon followed. Between the flick of Kent's tongue against the hinge of his jaw and the brush of his fingers against each layer Chandler couldn't help but let him weave his knuckles between the buttons of his waistcoat, couldn't help but shrug out of it when Kent pushed it away, couldn’t help but pull Kent's face back to his own as it fell to their feet. An abrupt surrender, abandon; Chandler flexed his fingers around Kent's hips as fingers brushed his neck, jaw, mouth in the extended attempt to get rid of his tie.

All of Chandler’s past experience—not that there was very much at all—would suggest that there were conversations that come before this, there were things that were supposed to happen before they landed in bed, but he supposed that had already happened in some odd, oblique way. He wouldn’t have been halfway there if he didn’t want to actually end up there; he wasn’t the sort of man who got that close without being comfortable with what he was getting close to. He hadn’t actually thought about it, of course, but Kent’s arm was wrapped around his shoulders and they were trip-walking back to the stairs, and he’d balled his hand in the soft fabric of Kent’s tee shirt long ago and he wasn’t going to let go. Not now. Not when he didn’t need to.

They were so distracted by each other, by the shedding of the usual layers, that neither of them realised how close they were to the bottom stair; the wooden structure clipped the back of Chandler’s heel first, and both he and Kent toppled over with a heavy thud.

‘Shit,’ Chandler hissed, blinking heavily as he rested his head on the stair behind.

‘Are you all right?’ Kent asked from somewhere close to his shoulder, voice strained with worry. 

‘Fine,’ Chandler said, breathless, as he looked up to meet Kent’s gaze. ‘More than fine.’ 

It could have been considered a lie, really, because where his back had collided with the edge of the stairs was throbbing rather insistently, but Chandler was more concerned with pushing the hem of Kent’s tee shirt up to reveal skin. Their arms collided as Kent’s fingers tried to find their way around the buttons on Chandler’s shirt. Kent gave up first, after only managing to open a few, and returned his mouth to Chandler’s as he let a wayward hand explore skin underneath the cotton. Chandler wasn’t so easily dissuaded and tugged at the offending fabric until Kent obliged and pulled it off himself. It landed somewhere in the expanse between wooden floors and well-trodden carpets but Chandler didn’t mind as he pressed his mouth to the protrusion of Kent’s wide collarbone, affixed a damp rosiness to the crook of his neck, ran a hand along his bare spine and picked out each vertebrae. He might have even growled when Kent’s hands tightened in his hair as he pressed his tongue along the base of his ribcage.

Once he’d put his mind to it, Kent managed to undo all the buttons on Chandler’s shirt and pull it free of his trousers, tugging the taller man back to his feet before pushing the fabric back off his shoulders. It ended up slung over the banister, pooling around the ornamental end, and once Chandler had toed off his shoes they ascended the steps. Kent managed to stop Chandler in his tracks, one hand braced against the wall, with a kiss to the back of his neck; it was only his soft chuckle and gentle nudging that got them upstairs at all. 

Kent pushed him back once they reached the landing, reaching for the back of his skull to bring their mouths back together and pressing Chandler’s back into his slightly open bedroom door. His hands travelled everywhere, mirror images across Chandler’s cheeks, the tendons of his neck, the top of his arms, pressing over the swell of muscle in his chest, fingers picking out each rib. Chandler tried to do the same, one hand tangled in Kent’s curls but the other wandering, tracing skin until they found bone and pulled hips flush to hips. There was a hitch in heavy breathing, and Kent pulled away for a moment, resting his forehead against Chandler’s.

‘Fuck,’ he breathed with a glance down between them, at Chandler’s possessive hand and everything inbetween, and he recaptured Chandler’s reddened, bitten mouth.

His palms returned to Chandler’s shoulders, pushing both backwards and down until the back of his knees collided with the edge of the bed. He sat down heavily, barely able to think about any movement that wasn’t the slide of their tongues, but Kent ducked his head to Chandler’s neck and crawled onto his lap.

‘God, Joe—’

A moan caught in the back of Chandler’s throat. It was the first time Kent had used his given name and it had been bitten into his shoulder, breath and teeth and tongue. Chandler turned to press his mouth to Kent’s temple, a gentle askance which was answered with a biting kiss that mellowed as the older man made incoherent sounds into his mouth. Kent smiled into the slanting of lips, pressing each finger one at a time into the shifting muscles in the back of Chandler’s neck. He rolled his hips, slowly and deliberately, before working Chandler back until he lay atop him.

Scooping an arm under him, Kent shoved him further up the bed best he could, his mouth moving to the soft spot under Chandler's chin and sucking—and although there was a panicked part of Chandler’s brain that told him he shouldn’t be doing it, shouldn’t be enjoyed it because someone would definitely see _that_ , oh how he did enjoy it with Kent’s weight against his chest and his hands pulling their hips into clumsy contact. It wasn’t enough, nowhere near, but it was something and that was brilliantly, brilliantly new.

They hadn’t made it far enough up the furniture for Chandler to be resting his head on a pillow. He pressed his head back into the folds of duvet instead as Kent moved downwards, pressing open-mouthed kisses to the skin that pulled over tensed muscles. A wash of tongue over jutting bone, lips trailing over sternum, warm breaths seeping between each rib. Breathing suddenly didn’t seem enough; Chandler had to keep his hands pressed to Kent’s skin, to the harsh in-out of his inhale, his exhale. He slipped from his fingers, slowly, gently, with the trace of fingerprints trailing upwards until Chandler could only curl his hand into the curl at Kent’s nape.

His chin knocked the cool metal of Chandler’s belt buckle; before he could do anything about it Kent’s fingers scraped against his skin, the muscles jumping, as he undid it. Chandler’s body was a step ahead of his mind, for he lifted his hips as Kent’s hands asked him to do so, and it was only when his pants joined the heap of his trousers somewhere on the floor that he really thought about what was happening.

‘Kent—!’ Chandler gasped.

‘Do you mind?’

Kent sounded sure, confident as he nipped the skin near the jut of Chandler’s hip, soothing the dull sting with the flat of his tongue. Their harsh breathing— _panting_ —punctuated the moment’s silence.

Chandler all but whined. ‘No.’

‘Do you want me to?’ Kent asked, mouth and nose trailing across salty skin. Chandler could feel his smile more than see it. 

‘Yes,’ he breathed, all the air leaving his lungs just when he needed it most.

He felt it everywhere, when it happened, when Kent grinned and took him in his mouth. He kept his mouth tight, tongue flattened out, forgoing the teasing for another time. Smoothly, all at once, with curled fingers at the base. It was all extraneous information when Chandler gave himself over to it and just _felt_.

Chandler tipped his back, eyes closed, and tried to breathe slowly in and out through his nose. The only way he’d be able to breathe, to last, to not groan incoherencies into the empty air around his mind. It didn’t always work, not with Kent’s tongue running circles around him, and he ghosted touches over the arch of Kent’s shoulders, over the back of his head, while the other hand fisted into the sheets at their side. He even managed to say quiet until Kent did something with his tongue that made Chandler's eyes roll back in his head, and he keened, the first proper sound that fought its way out of his throat.

A slight shift of angle had Chandler groaning involuntarily, slightly wantonly, upwards; if he could have heard himself he would have blushed even harder than he already was but he was gone, long gone. Too far gone to still be hearing anything other than the rush of blood in his ears, to be aware of anything other than Kent’s shoulder against his thigh and his fingers ( _God_ , his _fingers_ ) and his mouth and the inordinate warmth, the vibrations in his jaw, the swirl of expert movement— 

He was close, too close, hurtling towards the edge without brakes and Kent’s name pulled itself from his mouth, the only mixture of vowels and consonants that he recognized anymore. Chandler didn’t know what it was, a begging or a warning or a telling but whatever it was Kent understood him, the guttural thrust that prophesied the one from his hips, and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth as he came. 

Out of the darkness of behind his eyelids came a slow, uncoordinated kiss; certainly not lazy, not as Kent tilted Chandler’s head back with his hand and trailed his tongue across the inside of his upper lip. Chandler wasn’t inclined to passivity, not really, but he accepted it then as the world came trickling back. He was intensely aware of the slide of fluid between their skin, the thin sheen of sweat, the patches wetted by mouths, tongues, saliva. He would have minded if he hadn’t also felt Kent press against him, a solid point in the pleasant vagueness. The cotton of his pajama pants suddenly seemed superfluous and Chandler slipped a hand beyond the waistband.

‘Emerson,’ he breathed, eyes still closed, against Kent’s mouth, as he curled his fingers around Kent's cock and began to stroke him, relishing the hitch it puts in Kent’s fluid movements, the tightening of the grip on his shoulder.

Kent made a twitching, choking sound and rested his forehead against Chandler’s chin, breath coming in hot gasps against his neck. They both knew he wasn’t far behind, and even with Chandler’s relative inexperience it was simple enough—they had time for complex later, didn’t they? Not too tight, not too fast; just the fact that it was them was all they wanted, really, they just needed the friction they hadn’t found already. Kent curled a hand into the back of Chandler’s hair and pressed messy kisses to his mouth, chin, more teeth and gasps than anything else but Chandler wanted them, _wanted_ them even in his state. He can’t quite understand it but he presses up into them anyway, the same way Kent’s pressing down into him and they’re there, aren’t they, they’re _there_ as Kent came with an aborted thrust and a spill of noise that sounded a bit like Chandler’s name. 

He collapsed boneless against him, limbs moving slower than normal as they came to brush against Chandler’s heated skin. Initially Kent just buried his face in the curve of Chandler’s shoulder, his breathing gradually slowing to a familiar in-and-out, in-and-out, and Chandler was happy enough to wait and just to stroke his hand through the back of Kent’s hair as he’d wanted to before. When Kent raised his head to gaze at him he looked as though his entire world had just been tipped sideways, and he wasn’t displeased about it at all.

Chandler smiled, and Kent kissed him on the chin.

* 

Mustering the determination to shift Kent from where he’d nestled his nose under Chandler’s jaw was a lengthy process. He knew he’d have to go back into the station before the shift ended, and by the time Chandler raised his hand from where it lay trailing circles on Kent’s lower back it was well past the point when he could argue that he’d just taken a long lunch break. Chandler wheezed slightly as Kent shifted, their breathing long synchronized, and sighed as the younger man settled against his shoulder.

‘You’ve got to go back in, haven’t you?’ Kent’s lips dragged across Chandler’s bare shoulder.

Chandler hummed, eyes closed, and Kent tightened the arm he’d draped across his torso. He really wasn’t feeling as if he’d be able to move for a while yet, not while Kent rested his chin on his shoulder and their legs were tangled together at the bottom of the mussed bed. But he had to, didn’t he, and when the guilt outweighed the weight against his side, Chandler yawned and turned to brush his mouth against Kent’s forehead.

‘I’ve got to.’

Kent smiled, lazy and lopsided. ‘I don’t mind. As long as you’re coming back at some point.’

Chandler chuckled. ‘Might be difficult not to.’

Kent let him go, dragging his fingers across still-warmed skin, and rolled off the side of his bed. The absence of a comfortable warmth forced Chandler to heave himself up, first only onto his elbows and then so he could stretch his feet to the floor. Another glance at his watch told him he might as well afford himself a quick shower—he was late on all counts, anyway—and it might help with the inevitable overly pleased expression that he could feel plaster itself across his face.

It didn’t. Looking into the bathroom mirror only reinforced the smothered smile.

He was going to have to get a better poker face.

It wasn’t long until he rejoined Kent in the bedroom, and although the younger man had pulled on the pajamas that Chandler had pulled off, he still looked pleasingly rumpled. A dark mark peeked out from the crew neck top, and Chandler sidled up behind him to press his mouth to the bruised skin.

Kent tilted his head and leaned back into Chandler’s chest. ‘I brought up your clothes. Mine, too. Sorry about leaving all of it thrown over the banisters.’

Chandler smiled against his skin. ‘No, it’s fine. More than fine.’ He left another kiss before moving to reach for his trousers. ‘Good.’

He could tell Kent didn’t really believe him, but he didn’t mind. It would take them both some time before they stopped thinking in the same ways they had for the years of their acquaintance. Though it honestly hadn’t taken Chandler much time at all to accept the fact that he wanted to reach out and touch Kent, to connect with him in another way, and as he shook his shirt out he realised that he’d probably been feeling that for longer than he thought. From the look on Kent’s face while Chandler slowly did up the line of buttons, he reckoned Miles had been right. He couldn’t quite believe he hadn’t seen it before.

They occupied the room in silence, and it was only when Chandler was shrugging on his jacket did he realise it was an uncomfortable one. Kent stood to one side, back braced against the side of a bookcase, his fingers picking at a loose thread on his waistband. Chandler watched him from the other side, fingers checking the knot of his tie and the clasp of his cufflinks without the need for his eyes; Kent kept his gaze slanted down, eyes occasionally slipping towards the toes of Chandler’s shoes but never quite making it.

‘Emerson?’ Chandler asked, his tone forcibly light.

Kent looked up at him too quickly, his hands falling away from whatever they were worrying. ‘Yeah?’ 

‘Are you alright?’

His words seemed to strike something in Kent because he didn’t look away in the face of Chandler’s concern. Instead he held the gaze, mouth tightened. He looked like he wasn’t sure if it had happened at all, despite the fact that he’d just watched Chandler dress. Despite the rucked bed on the edge of their vision. Despite the broken blood vessels in Kent’s neck. Despite the fading teethmarks on Chandler’s hip.

Kent took a breath and attempted a smile. ‘I think so.’

It wasn’t enough, not for Chandler—he wasn’t sure, Kent wasn’t sure that what had happened wasn’t just an incident that he’d embellished in his head, and that didn’t bode well for either of them.

Chandler leaned over and kissed him with a hand resting on the crook of Kent’s jaw, thumb brushing against his cheekbone. Kent didn’t respond immediately to the brush of lips, and his hand oscillated between resting on his arm and brushing away. Chandler gripped at him harder, mirroring his hands on either side of Kent’s face, and found the reaction he wanted. Even so, Kent was painfully careful not to make it obvious that this is what they’d been doing whilst out of the office; the hands Chandler so wanted to find on him, whose shadows lingered over his covered skin, stilled at his waist with loose grip.

‘Em,’ Chandler said when he pulled away just far enough to look at Kent’s face properly. ‘Yeah?’

Kent bit at his lip, but smiled.

Genuinely, this time.

‘Yeah,’ he said, at last, and the uncertainty broke.

*

The door clicked shut behind him, and Chandler half expected the world outside to look different somehow now that he’d left Kent drag him into his bedroom. Or was it him who had done the dragging? It didn’t matter either way, though, because the ringing on his mobile was the same pitch, and the air was still the same sort of windy as it had been earlier in the day, and that couple from across the street was still walking their Maltese in the small green. Chandler was just raising a hand in distant greeting when Miles answered. 

‘Miles, I’m—’

The sergeant spoke over him. ‘Don’t bother.’

Chandler stopped walking, pausing mid-step and letting his hand drop heavily to his side. ‘What?’ 

‘Don’t bother coming back in today.’

‘Why?’ Chandler managed as he walked forward again, fishing his keys out of his coat pocket one-handed.

‘You know why.’ Miles sounded smug. ‘If it had gone badly, you’d have been back like a shot.’

Chandler wished he didn’t know exactly which shade of red he was turning.

‘I’m already at my car—’

‘You’re at your _car_?’ 

Chandler laid a hand on the door handle. ‘Yes?’

Miles made a gruff, exasperated sound. ‘Get back in there!’

‘The car?’

‘No, you muppet, the flat.’

There was a woman’s laughter in the background; probably Riley, from the way it trailed off into truncated chuckles.

Chandler sighed, letting his fingers slip away from the handle. ‘But, the team—’

‘I managed well enough for years before you came along,’ Miles interrupted. Chandler could almost hear the smirk. ‘Go. If I see either of you coming in before tomorrow’s shift, I’m marching you out myself.’

There was a blunt click as Miles hung up, but Chandler still stared at the screen for a moment as the call screen faded away to his contact list. That was an order he hadn’t expected to get. He didn’t doubt that Miles would go though with it, either. He’d probably had a plan in place from the moment Chandler let the incident room door close behind him, the sneaky sod.

Chandler made a mental note to buy him another bottle of single malt.

This time he didn’t hesitate to shove the key into the lock, metal brushed with stray yellow paint. The door shifted under his hand, tempted by the flick of his wrist, and Chandler was back inside Kent’s flat before the couple even managed to reach the opposite end of the green. It was a different sort of quiet, inside, without the outdoors it was just the quiet murmurations of words from speakers and stillness. Chandler smiled and began to shrug off his coat.

Kent appeared from around the corner, brow furrowed in silent question to the unexpected sound. The only difference to his person was the addition of a cup of tea; the way he craned his neck only reminded Chandler that there had been a real, proper change in their relationship. The mouth-shaped bruise definitely wasn’t a figment of his imagination. He smiled before he could stop himself, and Kent pulled a bewildered face.

Chandler shrugged as an answer to the unasked question. ‘I’ve been sent back.’

He shook his head, and deposited the tea on the edge of his desk. ‘You can’t have possibly been to the station.’

‘I didn’t even make it to my car,’ Chandler said as he hung up the coat.

Kent did frown, then. ‘I’m going to have a word with Miles.’

‘What, don’t you want me here?’

(Chandler hadn’t realised it was so easy to be playful. He might have to try it more, here, with Kent.)

Kent grinned but didn’t let the matter drop. ‘I’d have thought you’d be more indignant about this.’

‘So would I.’ Chandler took a few steps further into the room, feeling a part of it for once. ‘But I’m not.’

The younger man looked a little dubious, and fixed Chandler with a knowing glance that faded with Chandler’s growing smile. It was fine. Really, it was. He didn’t know why, or how, but for once he didn’t have an overwhelming need to go back to the station and bury himself in case files. He didn’t particularly want to—but he didn’t always want to when he did—and he was just pleased that he was still there, in Kent’s living room, welcomed. 

He had the entire night to worry about going back, after all. They both did.

The smile turned crooked as a thought occurred to him. ‘How did you know it was Miles?’

Kent scoffed. ‘It’s _always_ Miles.’

Chandler laughed—actually, properly laughed—and reached out an arm to pull Kent to his chest. ‘Don’t I know it.’

The shorter man allowed himself to be drawn closer, and turned into the crook of Chandler’s shoulder as he wrapped an arm around Kent’s.

‘What’s he going to say?’ Kent asked, wrapping his arms around Chandler’s waist after a moment’s hesitation. 

‘About what, exactly?’

‘People will notice neither of us are there.’

‘Stomach bugs, probably.’ Chandler tried to shrug, but ended up resting his chin on top of Kent’s head instead. ‘If anyone even asks.’

Kent pulled back in order to gaze up at Chandler’s face. ‘What makes you think that?' 

‘A weak train of thought on my part. It was the best I could come up with at the time.’

‘Your excuses have never been brilliant,’ Kent said, cocking an eyebrow at him as he smoothed at Chandler’s lapels with his palm.

‘Not my forté,’ Chandler quipped—or, at least, tried to. Kent’s crooked smile could be very distracting, if he let it.

‘I’m not complaining, mind.’

Kent’s hand had made its way to the back of Chandler’s neck, and for once he didn’t fight the gentle pressure that brought him closer to the younger officer’s mouth. Even the mental image of Miles chuckling as he walked around the station, well aware exactly what his DI and DC would be up to in their newly-free time, couldn't put him off as Kent nipped at his bottom lip. He might have even encouraged him with a hand slipped beneath both his top and the waistband of his pajamas.

And that time, Kent didn’t even hesitate to run his hands through Chandler’s hair.

*

They were careful to arrive separately the next morning, but they might as well not have bothered. Riley engulfed them both in wide-armed hugs as soon as she spotted them. Mansell waggled his eyebrows in their direction, winking as a red flush worked his way up Chandler’s neck. Miles clapped them both on the shoulder and told them not to be idiots, as difficult as that might be. Ed just beamed at them when he came up to report some missing archival files. 

It was all terribly cringe-worthy, and Chandler was annoyed that Miles had obviously taken it upon himself to inform them of the goings-on in Kent’s house on Quilter Street, but there was something seated deep in his stomach that wasn’t dissimilar to the warmth of happiness.

*

Chandler asked Miles for a private word in his office once everything had calmed down and they had a non-fatal stabbing on their hands. They left a snickering Mansell and a stern-faced Riley putting together the whiteboard, and Chandler shot Kent a guarded sympathetic look just before he shut the door. Miles had already settled into his usual chair by the time Chandler turned his attention to the office.

He sighed heavily as he gathered the words he wanted. ‘Did you just announce it as soon as I got off the phone?’

Miles just grinned. ‘I may have had a discrete word.’

‘Or two?’

‘Maybe even three,’ he replied, widening his eyes theatrically. 

‘Miles!’ Chandler scolded as he dropped into his chair, running his fingers over his brow.

‘Us knowing helps you.’

Chandler looked up from where he’d dropped his head into his hands. ‘Does it?’

‘It does.’ Miles sounded as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. ‘Who else do you think will save your arses?’

Chandler knew he was right, and even though he wished it didn’t, his resolve softened.

The sergeant smirked at him. ‘It’s not as if either you or Kent are used to being subtle.’

*

It didn’t even stop when they got to the pub. Miles had insisted on drinks after the shift, and everyone was chipping in—apart from Chandler and Kent. They weren’t allowed, apparently. Chandler was just getting the feeling that the entire thing was an underhand celebration of some sort when Riley sidled up to where he and Kent were standing. 

‘So,’ she began with a grin and a wave of her chardonnay. ‘You two.’

Chandler shot her a warning glance; he was very, very aware of the fact that he and Kent were standing side-by-side in a public house— _public_ being the operative word. He didn’t really need any more fuel for the fire. They all knew; when were they not going to mention it? Kent seemed to have a similar idea, but his dissuading expression outlived Chandler’s.

‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to make you talk about it.’ She bumped Kent’s shoulder with her own, earning a shy grin.

‘Just letting you know that Mansell might be a bit miffed with you for a few days.’ She leant closer, feigning confidence. ‘He had his money on nothing ever coming of it.’

Kent spluttered instead of swallowed and Chandler’s mouth went uncomfortably dry.

Riley looked as if she was on the verge of laughter. ‘I, on the other hand, can see inevitability when it stares me in the face.’ She paused, and handed Kent a paper towel to aid his inexpert daubing at his shirt. ‘So you two have just paid for some well needed window-cleaning!’

Chandler wasn’t sure how he felt about the team running a bookie’s office out of the incident room. The transient drinking den had been enough. Kent didn’t seem that surprised, though, and even harbored a smile on his face in the face of Riley’s glee. Perhaps it didn’t matter. As long as they didn’t start totting up the odds on the edge of the whiteboard. That would be a bit of a giveaway. 

Kent’s smile widened as Riley waggled her eyebrows at him. ‘I’m… glad?’

‘You should be, it’s a wonder I’ve managed to dress for the weather.’ She glanced down at herself as way of explanation before raising her glass to her lips. She nodded in Chandler’s direction as she took a sip. ‘Now, if you could just snog him at Miles’ Christmas do, then I’ll be able to get the drainpipes done!’ 

Kent went bright red.

Riley had never looked more pleased with herself.

Mansell and Miles were grinning over at them, each with an elbow on the bar and a pint in their hand.

Chandler smiled, watched the head on his beer as he nudged Kent’s elbow with his own, and thought for the first time that this could really work—just might _really_ work.

*

He wouldn’t have expected it, but life remained pretty much the same once he and Kent were properly involved. In fact, being properly involved wasn’t that much different to life before Chandler had padded into the kitchen and interrupted Kent’s tea-making. They went to work and tried to ignore everyone’s knowing glances and subtle innuendo, they came back to Kent’s flat and discussed leads or drank tea or bumped into each other one too many times while making a meal. The only real difference was that when they ended up on the sofa, they didn’t leave any space between each other any more. 

Their ties ended up slipping under the edge of the furniture more than once. 

Chandler abandoned his adopted bedroom in favour of Kent’s smaller one; there was ample space in the unoccupied half of Kent’s bed for him. They both slept much better than they had before, barring all-nighters at the station or decidedly hedonic distractions. Sometimes Kent twitched in his sleep, almost flinching, but Chandler just carded his fingers through the front of his hair and pressed a kiss to his furrowed brow. There wasn’t anything else he could do but hold him tighter. Occasionally Chandler would wake in the night and find an empty space where he’d expected Kent to be, but he never followed him to wherever he went. Those were the nights when Kent needed to be on his own, just for a little while. More often than not Chandler was still awake when he came back, eyes tired, and the younger man slipped back under his arms as quickly and quietly as he’d left them.

*

Chandler had expected to be over the moon when his landlord called and told him he could have his flat back.

He emphatically wasn’t.

He was perfectly comfortable where he was, thank you very much, with Have I Got News For You on in the background while Kent dozed against his shoulder. Kent seemed to have the same opinion when he mentioned it to him later on in the evening, and his reaction left them both panting on an unmade bed, the duvet long since kicked to the floor. 

Even so, Chandler found himself stood in his own flat the following morning, but only half of his things were still in his overnight bag. The rest remained tucked next to Kent’s in the space they’d made for them in the hour after midnight.

He still found himself in Kent’s cramped bed most nights.

He was more pleased about that than he thought he should be.

*

The sheets were still warm by the time he and Kent had crawled back underneath them.

Chandler crowded close, his arm hooked around Kent’s slim waist, and pressed a kiss to the still-damp hairline. Rain spattered against the windows, drumming lightly on the roof, but he was more interested in the soapy scent to Kent’s skin, the traces of borrowed shower gel that had ended up in his very own bathroom. 

Kent pressed back into Chandler’s chest, and hummed. ‘I’ll miss this.’

‘I wasn’t aware this was going to change,’ Chandler said, frowning slightly although Kent’s words were warm.

‘The lease,’ Kent explained as he shifted, ‘is up at the end of the month.' 

‘Oh.’ 

Chandler had almost forgotten; it hadn’t weighed heavily on his mind when it was already mostly occupied with their investigations and navigating whatever it was he had with Kent and trying not to seem obvious about it. Occasionally the memory popped into his mind, often when it was least welcome, but Chandler had always tried to convince himself that it was Kent’s problem, not his, and it definitely wasn’t his place to try and fix it. But for all that he’d said he wasn’t attached to his flat—and he still wasn’t—he was (perhaps) a little bit fond of Kent’s.

He absentmindedly pressed a kiss to the crook of Kent’s shoulder. The younger man rolled back into the contact. ‘I really should have been doing something about it before now.’

A hum rumbled against Kent’s skin. ‘Have you started looking?’

‘I’ve seen a few. It’s dire. Really bloody dire.’ Kent groaned and pressed his face into the pillow. ‘ _God_ , I’m going to end up living in a cardboard box next to the rails, aren’t I?’

Chandler smiled against the sliver of Kent’s shower-warm skin between his hairline and the neck of his tee-shirt, and felt the first stirrings of gentle laugher under his hand. ‘No, you’re not.’

Kent huffed; it was answer enough.

‘Would you stay here?’ Chandler asked as he pressed his nose into the space between Kent’s shoulder blades. ‘If you could?’

He could feel Kent’s heavy sigh from all directions, skin and bone and mattress. ‘Like a shot.’

Chandler paused, swallowed. ‘What if you could?’

Kent went very still. ‘What are you trying to say, Joe?’

‘I could stay, too.’

The words came out as more of a whisper than Chandler had originally intended.

Kent wriggled under Chandler’s arm, pulling the duvet with him as he rolled, and Chandler relinquished his grip. There wasn’t really anywhere else to put his limbs, though, so when Kent settled facing him Chandler rested a hand against the base of his ribs. The younger man looked at him, dark eyes questioning through the dim light, watching each flick of Chandler’s eyes with an odd mixture of amazement and unease.

‘You’ve gone about this backwards.’

He laid a tentative hand against Chandler’s bare stomach; the muscle jumped.

‘Pardon?’ 

A small smile appeared as Kent pressed an extended finger into Chandler’s chest. ‘ _I’m_ supposed to ask _you_ if you want to move in here.’

Guilt clawed at the inside of his ribcage; he almost regretted even bringing it up, now. ‘Is that a no?’ 

Kent shifted closer, nudging their knees together. ‘Are you sure?’

Chandler was sure that his confusion showed on his face, even if half of it was shrouded in pillow and the other in semi-darkness. That wasn’t quite the answer he’d thought he’d get. In fact, he’d been more prepared for Kent to just tell him no. Or silence. Silence wouldn’t have been especially surprising.

‘Are you sure?’ Kent repeated without added inflection—just a plain question. He shrugged the shoulder that wasn’t pressed against the mattress. ‘To be honest, I never expected you to want to.’

‘You didn’t think I’d want to live with you?’

(That didn’t bode well, did it?)

Kent shook his head, curls splaying against the cotton. ‘With anyone.' 

‘Oh.’

There must have been something hurt on his features because Kent’s face shifted, and he lifted the hand from Chandler’s chest to cup the side of his face. Chandler was glad for the contact—it didn’t seem like he was about to be shoved out of bed, anyway—but it still felt incongruous, even with his own hand resting against the curve of Kent’s spine.

‘I—I don’t mean because you might get on people’s nerves,’ Kent began, and Chandler could tell that he was choosing his words carefully. ‘Not because you can be a bit awkward. Not—not because of what you’re like—’ He bit off the words. He wasn’t articulating whatever it was he wanted to say very well. 

They laid through the murmured pause, Kent’s fingers stroking the curve of Chandler’s neck. 

‘I’m digging a hole here, aren’t I?’ he asked, with a melancholy twist of his lips.

‘A little bit.’

Chandler felt a smile slip out with the words, even if the situation didn’t quite seem to warrant it. But Kent fell to the temptation as well, more relaxed that he’d been a minute ago; his eyes were smiling, his mouth only sort of. Chandler hadn’t quite realised that Kent found it as difficult as he did to talk, to _speak_ clearly; he hadn’t realised that he was worried about where this left him. Chandler had always assumed Kent as a bit of a constant. He’d find it hard to be offended by anything he said.

‘Just because…’ Kent trailed off in favour of running his fingers down the length of Chandler’s arm. ‘Well, you like your own space, don’t you?’

‘Mmmhm.’ Chandler drew Kent closer to him, flattening his palm across his lower back. ‘I like yours, too, though.’

‘What?’

‘I like this house. I didn’t think I would, when Miles shoved us in here. But I did. I—well, I relaxed, and for me—’

Kent filled in for him. ‘That’s difficult.’

‘Precisely.’ Chandler buried his face in the crook of Kent’s neck. ‘You helped, too.’

‘Course I did,’ Kent said with a soft chuckle. He coaxed Chandler’s head back so that they could look at one another. ‘So, you’re sure?’

‘I think so.’ He stroked his palm up and down Kent’s back until it rested low on his waist. ‘I’d have to keep my flat on until the end of the lease, though, so I suppose that’s—’

Something distressed flittered over Kent’s features. ‘Joe—’ 

‘It’s fine, Em,’ Chandler interrupted, tightening his grip on Kent’s hip. ‘I’d rather be here, anyway.’

Kent paused, as if considering the verity of that particular statement, but a small smile gave him away. ‘I’ve noticed.' 

‘I don’t think I’ve slept in my flat for a week.’ 

The smile widened. ‘Why bother in the future, then?’

Chandler’s hand slipped neatly under the hem of Kent’s t-shirt, and Kent pushed up on one elbow and bore Chandler back to the mattress. It was obvious to the both of them that Chandler could easily roll them both over, as he’d done quite deftly an hour beforehand, but Chandler was pleased to have Kent’s weight against his bones. It was a physical reminder that he hadn’t gone, that he wasn’t going to let Chandler go. Not when he was bending to kiss at his skin, gentle, pleased.

‘You’re wonderful,’ Kent said, the words brushing against skin as he pressed a kiss to just below Chandler’s ear. 

Chandler huffed in disbelief. ‘Not entirely.’

‘No, but enough.' 

He still couldn’t quite believe him, not even when he took into consideration the other compliments Kent paid him, but any inkling of his to protest were efficiently drowned out by Kent’s mouth. It was warm, deep, lazy; there wasn’t much intent in it, not yet, but their hands roamed anyway. Chandler pushed his palms further up Kent’s back, pulling him closer, because it still felt like a thrill that he could—and Kent responded with quick, firm kisses to the corner of Chandler’s mouth and the bow of his top lip.

One of their phones buzzed at the side of their heads; they would have ignored it if the vibration hadn’t been immediately followed by the ringtone Kent used exclusively for calls from the station. Kent sighed and braced himself against the mattress as if he was making to leave, but Chandler pressed close, not letting the kiss end. The younger man obliged, just for a moment, before he broke the kiss; he licked Chandler’s palate and upper lip before getting out completely, though, and left Chandler catching his breath. 

Kent sat up, nestling into a comfortable seat on top of Chandler, and frowned at his phone.

He shot Chandler an apologetic glance before he answered. ‘Skip.’ 

Chandler groaned and twisted the part of his torso that wasn’t pinned down by Kent’s weight in order to find his watch. The hands told him it was well past midnight, so if Miles was on the phone it could only mean one thing. He could only hope that he didn’t look quite as debauched as he felt. 

‘Yes, he’s here.’

Kent mouthed ‘Miles says hello,’ in response to Chandler’s inquisitive look. 

Chandler really didn’t want to know why it was so easy for Miles to guess he was in Kent’s bed.

‘Yeah, we’ll be there,’ Kent said, replying to an unknown question, as he climbed off Chandler and the bed.

Chandler was surprised to find that he missed the weight, missed the warmth, missed the gentle beating of Kent’s heart against his skin as they lay together. He’d missed it each time, and never quite understood why. He didn’t then, not even as he heaved himself into a sitting position and followed Kent’s example, but he did wonder if that was how his life was going to go, now.

Kent turned and grinned at him, phone still pressed against his ear as he reached for a suitable shirt.

It was strikingly easy for Chandler to smile back.


End file.
